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Report of the 


ANGLO- CATHOLI 
CONGRESS 


SUBJECT: THE HOLY EUCHARIST 


London, fuly, 1927 





The Society of SS. Peter & Paul, Limited 
Westminster House, 8 Great Smith Street 
London, S.W.1 


Morehouse Publishing Company 
Milwaukee, U.S.A. 





IMPRINTED AT 
ESHER 
BY 
MESSRS. BILLING AND SONS, LTD., 
FOR 
THE SOCIETY OF SS, PETER AND PAUL 
WESTMINSTER HOUSE, 
GREAT SMITH STREET, 
S.W. I. 





& Foreword ® 





3 HE commencement of the Third 
Pe) fiat Congress may be 
* reckoned from Sunday, July 3, when 
B=, Masses were offered at over ninety 
ib churches in the London distriét alone, 
5 and special sermons were preached, 
~ both at Mass and at the evening 


5 i The first session of the Congress 
was held in the Albert Hall, on the following afternoon, 
Monday, July 4. The Rt. Revd. Bishop Chandler, as President 
of the Congress Committee, formally “ installed” the Bishop 
of Nassau as Chairman of the Congress, and the first papers 
on the Holy Eucharist were read according to programme. 
The Revd. Fr. Bull, S.S.J.E., made the appeal for contribu- 
tions to the Congress funds. In the evening the Revd. Geofirey 
Heald was the additional speaker. 

On the second day the sessions were three in number. In 
addition to the readers of papers, the Revd. C. E. Russell, the 
Revd. Fr. Tooth, the Revd. C. R. Deakin, Lord Halifax, and 
the Revd. G. D. Rosenthal spoke, the Bishop of Nassau pre- 
siding at each of the three sessions. 

Wednesday, July 6, marked an interval in the regular Con- 
gress programme, and in many respects was an experiment in 
organization. From all parts of England and Wales special 
trains brought in parties of one-day pilgrims, who were met 
at their respective London termini and taken in charabancs 
to the particular church which had been allotted to them. At 
various convenient hours High Mass was sung and Holy Com- 
munion given. At 11.30 a.m., in the Albert Hall, a special 
Congress meeting was held for these one-day visitors. The 
Bishop of Nassau presided, and the Revd. G. Heald, the 
Revd. Fr. Hughson, O.H.C. (whose speech is given in the 

Vv 


Foreword 


Appendix), and the Revd. L. A. Matthew were the speakers. 
At noon that same day a City meeting was held at the Cannon 
Street Hotel, with Sir Henry Slesser in the chair. The Revd. 
A. E. Monahan, Mr. Glass, and the Revd. G. D. Rosenthal 
addressed the meeting. 

- Meanwhile, in the Albert Hall, a meeting of the Foreign 
Missionary Association of the Congress was held in the early 
afternoon. Bishop Chandler presided, and was followed by 
the Bishop of London, who had come, at considerable incon- 
venience, from the Church Assembly, which, at that very 
moment, was in the midst of the crucial Prayer-Book revision 
debate. The Bishop’s determination so to visit the Congress 
was warmly appreciated. Sir Claude Severne, the Revd. V. F. 
Hambling, the Bishop of Damaraland, and the Revd. Canon 
Broomfield also spoke. 

At 5 p.m., immediately following the missionary meeting, 
a devotional meeting was conducted by the Revd. Fr. Vernon, 
S.D.C. Probably at no other time was there a larger attend- 
ance, the hall being densely crowded from gallery to arena. 

Finally, in the evening, the arena having been cleared, a 
“ Social,’ with music, both orchestral and vocal, was held from 
8 p.m. onwards. A short meeting served as an introduction 
to the more informal proceedings, General Carleton-Jones, 
Secretary of the Organization Committee, taking the chair. 
The Revd. G. D. Rosenthal and Sir Henry Slesser (whose 
speeches appear in the Appendix), and the Revd. H. A. Wilson 
were the speakers. 

On Thursday, July 7, the regular sessions were resumed, 
three being held on both this and the following day. Mr. 
Humphrey Beevor, Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith, the Revd. Arnold 
Pinchard, and the Revd. G. C. Ommaney were the additional 
speakers. On this evening the first of the two Queen’s Hall 
sessions was held, Bishop Chandler presiding, and the Revd. 
K. E. Kirk, the Revd. C. R. Deakin, and the Revd. E. G. 
Selwyn addressed the meeting. 

On the concluding day the sessions were even more 
crowded than on the previous occasions, the Revd. F. L. 
Underhill making the appeal at the morning session. In the 
afternoon, Mgr. Germanos, the Metropolitan of Thyatira, the 

vi 





Foreword 


Archimandrite Constantinides, and the Revd. Chaplain to 
the ex-King of Greece were formally welcomed to the plat- 
form by the Bishop of Nassau. The Metropolitan of Thyatira 
and the Revd. Fr. Tribe, S.S.M., addressed the meeting in 
addition to the regular speakers. Friday evening marked the 
conclusion of the Congress sessions. The Revd. G. Heald and 
Mr. Sidney Dark addressed the meeting, and during the 
course of the evening a telegram was sent, by unanimous 
approval, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, conveying the 
respectful and affectionate greetings of the ten thousand 
Anglo-Catholics assembled in the Albert Hall, to his Grace, 
with an assurance of their love, honour, and prayers. 

During the Chairman’s final speech, which appears in the 
body of the Report, the following reply was received from 
Lambeth, and was read out by the Chairman and received 
with enthusiastic applause, the vast audience rising spon- 
taneously to its feet: 

“T thank you for your loyal message. I appreciate the high 
tone which seems to have marked your discussions and their 
welcome freedom from controversial reference to the problem 
which has been before the Church Assembly. I earnestly pray 
that we may all be enabled to work together to the glory of 
God and to the deepening and Strengthening of the faith we 
love.—RANDALL CANTUAR.” 

At the Queen’s Hall meeting that evening the chair was 
taken by the Revd. Dr. P. N. Waggett, S.S.J.E., the Revd. 
F. L. Underhill, the Revd. E. D. Merritt, the Revd. Dudley 
Symon, and the Revd. C. P. Hankey also addressing the 
meeting. A telegram was sent to the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury similar to that despatched from the Albert Hall. 

On Saturday, July 9, several Masses for children were held 
in Congress churches, and a Congress Pilgrimage proceeded 
to Canterbury, under the presidency of the Bishop of Nassau. 
On Sunday, July 10, Masses of thanksgiving were offered in 
all the Congress churches, Te Deums were sung at the even- 
ing services, and special sermons were preached, both in the 
morning and evening. 

In addition to the Albert Hall and Queen’s Hall sessions, 
simultaneous Congresses, at which selected Congress papers 

Vii 


Foreword 


were read, were held in forty-nine centres, including such far 
distant places as Falmouth, Truro, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paris, 
Tokyo, Ottawa, Colombo, etc. The sum of over £23,000 was 
raised by the Congress for the various objects which have been 
described at length in other publications elsewhere. Over 
21,000 Anglo-Catholics' enrolled themselves as Congress 
members. 


* * * * * 


The foregoing is but a formal record of the Eucharistic 
Congress of 1927, and, as such, it can convey no idea of the 
enthusiasm and devotion which it manifested. To attempt 
such a description is no part of the editors’ task. But, before 
concluding this Foreword, they feel bound to offer certain | 
explanations, by way of apologia. 

In the first place, the Congress of 1927 presents difficulties, 
from an editorial standpoint, which were not present in the 
former Congresses. A number of meetings, for example, were 
held outside the normal Congress sessions, meetings such as 
that of the Foreign Missionary Association, the “ Social,” the 
City meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel, and the two Queen’s 
Hall meetings. Only in a few cases has it been possible to 
include any report of the speeches and papers given at these 
funétions. 

Whereas the 1923 Congress lasted only for three days, this 
Congress consisted of eleven Albert Hall sessions. As it was 
essential that the Report should be issued at a reasonably low 
price, the editors have been compelled to exercise their editorial 
discretion, since the inclusion of every paper and every speech 
would have involved a far more unwieldy volume than the 
expense would warrant. 

Again, in 1923, there were a few special services at which 
sermons were preached, and which could be included precisely 
because they were few in number. In 1927 there were over 
330 services at Congress churches, at all of which sermons 
were preached. Obviously these could not be contained in the 
Report. 

The editors, as they have read through the proofs, have 
been more than ever conscious of the dignity and importance 

vill 


Foreword 


of this Congress, and of the comparative responsibility, there- 
fore, which they themselves have incurred. They are confident 
that no one who reads this book will fail to realize how reverent 
and high a Standard was set. Indeed, the Congress marks 
clearly a new period upon which the Anglo-Catholic Move- 
ment has entered, and a period full of promise and oppor- 
tunity. Whatever problems the future contains, it is certain 
that the Movement possesses a spiritual virility and devotion 
which justifies a sense of thankfulness. Finally, the editors 
feel no hesitation in suggesting that the careful study of the 
papers which this Report contains is no small part of the 
immediate duty of Congress members, and of all, indeed, 
who profess their allegiance to the Anglo-Catholic Movement. 


CHARLES SCOTT GILLETT 


KENNETH INGRAM 
Editors 


tal an re 
VPa4 
olin Riek, 


rune 


9 
- 





« Contents of this Report ® 


General Subject 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST 


ForEworRD 5 : . page 


PAPERS READ AT THE CONGRESS: 


I. 


WE 


Ii. 


THE BACKGROUND OF SACRAMENTAL 


BELIEF 
. The Christian View of the World . . page 
The Revd. Father P. N. Waggett, D.D., of the 
Society of St. John the Evangelist. 

The Christian Doétrine of Man. . page 
The Revd. N. P. Williams, D.D., Lady Margaret 
Professor of Divinity in the Unwersity of 
Oxford. 

THE CONTEXT OF THE EUCHARIST 

. Sacraments in other Religions , . page 
The Revd. Basil E. Butler, M.A., Tutor of Keble 
College, Oxford. 

Sacraments and the Presence of Godin Nature page 
N. K. H. A. Coghill, Esq., Fellow of Exeter 
College, Oxford. 

Sacraments and MySticism . F . page 


Miss Evelyn Underhill. 


x1 


21 


32 


43 


ae 


Il. 


Contents of this Report 


THE EUCHARIST AND REVELATION 


The Revd. Canon Darwell Stone, D.D., Principal 
of Pusey House, Oxford. 


Xil 


The Eucharist in the New Testament . page 51 
The Revd. Sir Edwyn Hoskyns, Bart., Fellow of 
Corpus Christ College, Cambridge. 

THE IDEA OF SACRIFICE OUTSIDE 
CHRISTIANITY 
. Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) : . page 57 
The Revd. E. O. James, D.Litt., F.S.A., Vicar of 
St. Thomas’ Church, Oxford. 

Sacrifice in the Old Testament . page 68 
The Revd. Canon H. L. Goudge, D.D., Regius 
Professor of Divinity in the University of 
Oxford. 

THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE 
. On Calvary . page 80 
The Revd. K. E. Kirk, DD. Sie of Trinity 
College, Oxford. 

In the Eucharist. . page go 
The Revd. E. G. Selwyn, D.D., Rector of Red 
Hill, Havant, and Editor of “ Theology. 4 

THE REAL PRESENCE 
. Historically Considered : : . page or 








II. 


II. 


Il. 


Ill. 


Contents of this Report 
Theologically and Philosophically Considered 


Page 


Dr. A. E. Taylor, F.B.A., Professor of Moral 


Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh; 


and 


Will Spens, Esq., C.B.E., Fellow and Tutor of 


Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 


THE APPROACH TO THE PRESENCE 


. The Holy Spirit and the Eucharist . 


page 


The Revd. A. E. J]. Rawlinson, D.D., Student 


of Christ Church, Oxford. 


Christian Priesthood 
Fhe Revd. C. '§.. Gillett, M.A. (Oxon 


page 


and 


Cantab); Fellow and Dean of Peterhouse, 
Cambridge; Examining Chaplain to the Bishop 


of Southwell. 


THE MEANING OF THE PRESENCE 


‘ Preparation for Communion 


dd 


The Revd. Francis Underhill, M. ve Warden of 


Liddon House. 


Communion with Man 


page 


The Revd. Dudley Symon, Freadmate of 


Woodbridge School. 


Communion with God 


Pane 


The. Revd. C. P. Hankey, M.A., Vicar of St. 


Mary-the-Less Church, Cambridge. 


THE RESERVED SACRAMENT 


. Its Use for Communion 


page 


The Revd. Prebendary H. F. B. ieee M.A., 


Vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street. 


Xiil 


109g 


I20 


129 


140 


BOT: 


162 


If. 


if 


II. 


Il. 


Contents of this Report 


XIV, 


Its Devotional Aspect . page 172 
The Revd. Father Lionel Theboioe of the Com- 
munity of the Resurrection. 

THE EUCHARISTIC LITURGY 
. Eucharistic Rites. . page 183 
The Revd. K. D. Mico M. a late Fellow 
of Pembroke College, Oxford. 

Eucharistic Ceremonies ; . page 195 
Stephen Gaselee, Esq., C.B.E., F. 5. A., and the 
Revd. Maurice Child, M.A., General Secretary 
of the Anglo-Catholic Congress. 

EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP 
. The Principles of Christian Worship . . page 204 
The Revd. C. W. Hutchinson, A.K.C., Vicar of 
St. John’s Church, Waterloo Road, Lambeth. 

The Sunday Eucharist : . page 210 
The Revd. G. H. Clayton, M. vi Vicar of 
Chesterfield. 

CoNncLUDING SPEECH . page 218 | 
The Bishop of Nassau (Chaiteuiay 

APPENDIX 
. Address by the Revd. Father Hughson, of the 
Order of the Holy Cross . . . page 221 
. Address by the Revd. G. D. Rosenthal, M.A., Vicar 
of St. Agatha’s Church, Sparkbrook . page 227 
Address by Sir Henry Slesser, K.C., M.P. . page 230 


The Background 


of Sacramental Belief 


3 1 & 
The Christian View of the World 


By P. N. WAGGETT, S.S.J.E. 


27 F I quite understand what is expected 
8° V4 of me, we are now, in preparation for 
wx. devout reflection upon the Eucharist, 
“os to mark some of the characteristics of 
i) Christian thought about the world, 
j that is to say, the scene of our mortal 
a life. Such a Study of Christian thought 
R92 2 might lead us a long way, in respect 
<AOIGSS both of the range of facts thought 
ane and the modes of thought about the fa¢ts. Indeed, I 
suppose that in one sense there are as many Christian views 
of the world as there are Christians. At present the Christian 
view would for many be the Evolutionary View. To others a 
Christian view would have regard to the relative character of 
sense perceptions. But there are, perhaps, some features of 
thought which are, in a special degree, characteristic of all 
Christian thought. 

There is one, indeed, that is universal and regulative. There 
is no Christian thought about anything that has not for its 
entirely constant and perpetually fruitful centre an absorbing 
belief in God. The fear of God, the knowledge and love of 
God is the foundation of all the Christian’s science and of 
all his wisdom. It is because this fact is thoroughly familiar 
to everyone here, and made the law of life and thought, that 

B I 





Sacramental Belief 


we have been given no paper about the adoring search for 
the knowledge of God, without which all attempt to contem- 
plate the particular revelation given us in the Eucharist must 
be entirely vain, and even dangerous. 

The Holy Eucharist is entirely the Gift of God; and it is 
what it is and nothing less. It is not measured by our apprecia- 
tion of it. The gift comes to us in the manner in which it 
comes and there is no variableness or shadow of turning in 
this manner, though our notions of it change; for it is the 
manner of the mercy of God. It is what it is; it comes as it 
comes and not otherwise; and the purpose of its beSstowal 
upon us is the purpose God has appointed for it. 

Its visible and tangible elements belong to the range of 
Nature. The invisible treasure of the Eucharistic Gift—the. 
Body and Blood of Christ—is not part of the order of Nature, 
like a sunrise or an eclipse, nor an “ interruption ” of that order 
like a miracle—though a miracle is itself part of a higher 
order. This gift is an event and a reality in Christ’s new 
creation, the Church, a mystery of health in the Body of Christ. 

It is wholly in every moment the gift of the Father; wholly 
an operation of the Eternal Word; wholly a movement of 
the sovereign and life-giving Spirit. On our part it is wholly, 
from first to last, a matter of prayer, a prayer that is itself a 
gift and operation of the same Divine Spirit. And both our 
supplication and our undemanding adoration reach their 
highest expression when, to God and by the Power of the 
Holy Ghost, we tell the very actions and words of the In- 
carnate Son in the same night that he was betrayed. Here, as 
Canon Brightman says, we lay the situation before God in the 
highest form of Prayer and accept the consequence approved 
by his love. 

From God then, in his Church, and welcomed by the 
faith and prayer God gives us, comes the heavenly Gift. It is 
the Church’s sacrifice and Christ’s, it is the presence of the 
Lord Jesus, the centre of our worship, the guiding lamp of 
the children, the great daily means of Grace, the food of the 
innocent and the holy, the full restoration of the penitent, the 
consolation of the trembling and the sad, the bread of the 
Strong, the support in the darkness of the spirits that depart 

2 





The Christian View of the World 


hence in the Lord; for Christ is in this Gift the life of all that 
believe and the resurrection of the dead, the only hope of the 
last day. ““Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, 
hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Of 
all this others will speak. 

I have only to speak, in the most general terms I can find, 
of some features that are frequent in the Christian thought of 
the world, that thought which is the nidus or the soil of the 
seed of divine faith. I say only frequent, for few are universal. 
Of the differences between Christian thinkers some are not 
theological, or even philosophical, but temperamental. And 
again, there are differences of mental Stature and rank. In 
some, the wings of the mind are Strong for the most extended 
flights; in some, barely able to leave the ground. The faith 
has room for the choicest spirits, not usually among its com- 
manding officers and teachers, though we must remember the 
exalted prophecy of apostles, and the appearance here and 
there in the ages of exalted and illuminated souls among the 
inheritors of apostolic authority. We have room for these, 
and~every now and then for a metaphysician—an_ idealist. 
Clement and Fénelon and Anselm were all bishops. 

But the weight of the Christian fortunes is in the ordinary 
folk, the rank and file of kings and prelates, captains and 
merchants, learned folk and simple, labourers, soldiers, kind 
pastors, faithful communicants. The philosophy of the Church 
must have a witness in these, and not only in the recluse who 
has escaped the trammels of sense, or in the blessed souls 
bathed in the sunshine and driven by the Storms of super- 
natural prayer. 

Now this ordinary Christian philosophy is what the 
philosophers would call a common-sense mode of thought. It 
is not in any technical sense materialistic; but it pays much 
regard to the concrete, the manifold, the phenomenal, the 
particular. Secondly, it is not strictly speaking Necessitarian 
or Determinist; but it recognizes and relies on a sequence in 
events. It instinctively believes that great effects point to great 
causes, and, knowing that nothing great or small happens 
without God’s will, it knows that the particular thing that 
happens is according to a particular purpose of God, and has, 


3 


Sacramental Belief 


in what we read as history, a train of regular and adequate 
antecedents. | 

Thirdly, this characteristic and ordinary Christian thought 
is not worldly; but it regards very steadily the dignity, reality, 
importance of common human life, individual and domestic, 
its knowledge and activities and policy and justice and hopes. 
It is not characteristic of the Christian to live detached from 
all this and to find satisfa¢tion in a worship free from all 
implication with human interests and needs. Christian 
thought regards the actual, believes in the regular and the 
accountable, and reverences the human. 

The Church accused of contempt for mankind proclaims 
the legitimate authority of natural society. 

The Church suspected of a dread of science and a passion . 
for miracles is the prophet of the reign of law. 

The Church credited—and it is made a matter of credit— 
with an unlimited transcendentalism is the champion of 
reverence for the phenomenal world; and in every repetition 
of the Creed cries with exultant confidence that God is the 
maker not of heaven only but of earth as well, that the Father 
created, and holds in existence by the Word and the Holy 
Spirit, all things not only invisible but visible. The Church 
has always by a divine instin¢ét condemned the supposed 
spirituality that found a moral exaltation in the inward and 
the psychical. Like a wise mother she knows that if bodies 
consecrated to be temples of the Holy Spirit can be corrupted 
and ruined by sin, certainly tempers and wishes and spirits— 
creations invisible, but possibly not unphysical—are at least as 
much open to perversion, to misuse, and to destruction. 

Give me leave to add a few words on each of these heads, 
and then point to their connection with Eucharistic worship 
and belief. 

1. The Christian regard for the actual, the particular, the 
material. There is nothing securely divine in the contempt of 
earthly experience; there is no valid contrast between the 
a€tual and the spiritual. 

The non-material is at least as actual as the most enduring 
or the most rapidly perishing of the things of sense. And the 


actual, however material, however brief its tenure of the 


4 


The Christian View of the World 


Stage of existence, however narrow its range or short its 
orbit of reality, is capable of being, by the power of the 
Creator Spirit and by the ministry of the spirit of man, as 
truly, though not as grandly, spiritual as the unimagined 
powers and splendours of the Divine Presence. The clouds 
also, though they change and vanish while we admire them, 
are his messengers, and he maketh ministers of the instan- 
taneous rise and fall of the fire. 

The neglect or contempt of the material, and of the 
regular successions of our “ outward” life, whether personal 
or social, takes on the air of a specially spiritual mood. But it 
leads to practical atheism in the conduét of life. In the mid- 
current of the immense wealth, power, and grand organiza- 
tion of life in America, there is evident a Strong and humble 
spirit of detachment. Many of the heroic Christians in that 
wonderful land incline to regard exclusively what are called 
the things of the soul. In this way they do a real Christian 
service. But if such an effort of detachment remained without 
counterpoise, it would lead in less enlightened spirits to the 
conclusion that what happens to the man’s mind is of con- 
sequence, while what happens to the man’s money is not of 
consequence, or has less consequence, in the high measures 
of morality and faith. It would lead to the abandonment of 
the material resources to a godless management, unrelated in 
purpose to the salvation of man and the kingdom and glory 
of God. 

Do not mistake me. The transcendental thought, the way 
to truth by escape from the visible and the changing, is a real 
mode of human thought too; and it does not exist for nothing. 
In it, indeed, and by it, we find the convincing witness of the 
eternal; it is in contrast with the unchangeable thus, perhaps 
unconsciously, discovered that we are aware of time and pro- 
cess. But when it is thorough-paced and persevering this 
metaphysical perception becomes much more than tolerant of 
the particular. It finds the infinite im the contingent. For, 
indeed, it is not the particular, it is the abstract and the abstrac- 
tion that confines the spirit and the mind of man. As in 
virtue, he that would do good must do it in particular a¢tions, 
so in thought, he that would find truth must find it if not in 


5 


Sacramental Belief 


particular objects yet through particular efforts of subjection 
to the eternal truth. . 

The infinite significance of the Particular shines once for 
all in our Lord; he is the principle of all health; but he is not 
content to abide in his world as the unshaken promise of 
restoration. In the fulness of time he also appears in it by 
Incarnation, bears our burden and our sickness, and that not 
for mankind only, but for men and women and children. 

He heals this wife’s mother and that man’s son; he en- 
lightens the ignorance of a¢tual persons and bids them regard 
actual events. Be sure that of us also he demands the cure of 
this disgrace and that; of the lack of proper dwellings for the 
multitude, the murder or the unredeemed captivity of perse- 
cuted races, the ignorance of actual unbelievers, who fail to . 
believe because we do not personally shine with the evidence 
of God. 

No, it is not the particular that confines. It is the abstract 
and the abstraction that shut us out from the unchanging and 
the real. Charaéteristic Christian thought regards the a¢tual; 
it has (but this by the way) some suspicion of the doétrine and 
the judgment called the judgment of values; it banks on 
the facts. If Christ be not risen, is the cry of a typical 
Christian, your faith is vain. 

2. What I have written of the Christian regard for the 
Reign of Law must be taken as read. Only we mutt say that 
when we believe in the genuine reversal of our sins, it is 
because we believe in a real cause of such cure and reversal, 
the sacrificing Love of Christ, and not in a fairy tale of man’s 
magical abolition of his own past. 

3. There is hardly need of words to remind you of the 
Christian reverence for human life; but sometimes even here 
error has crept in. Distrust the spirituality that flings about 
the word “‘ man-made”’ as an unanswerable accusation. There 
is, indeed, a “‘ man-made ”’ that is not divine, that is ““ human- 
all-too-human”’ in its pride and ignorance and moral weak- 
ness. But those who adore the Incarnate Word dare not say 
that what enlists the faculties of man and uses the pathetic 
endeavours and affections of man is therefore, and to that 
extent, not of God. 


6 


The Christian View of the World 


Finally, we may, very simply, point to the Eucharistic bear- 
ing of these common charaéters of Christian thought, this 
actualism, this scientific temper, this humanism. 

1. “ We are not ashamed of the Gospel” of Christ’s power 
in the Eucharist, because the gift has a material side. We do 
not believe that our Communion by the Spirit in this world 
with the Exalted Saviour, our King in heaven, whose coming 
from heaven we look for, would be purer or more secure if 
that Communion were always free from all implications of 
occasion and place, of “earthly”? counterpart and visible 
instrument. 

But we pray that in all our Sacramental Worship and our 
Sacramental Communion, the whole reality of our being may 
rise to him upon his throne in the Light no man may approach 
without him, beyond all the definitions of our thought, and 
all the limitations of time and space. 

2. We are not ashamed of our faith because the mystery 
has laws and regular sequence, and is not left to so-called 
chance or to the uncertain moods of our own temper. We are 
not dismayed because we have, through his apostles, received 
from the Lord himself what we ought to do, the few and 
simple essentials of the Consecration of this gift, the main 
lines, to which we are bound, but God is not bound, of the 
Covenant bestowed upon us. 

3. And, I add, do not be afraid of the dodtrine because the 
Eucharist has a human side, a share even for our Striving, the 
grievously backward and variable effort of our humanity. 

We shall not think to exalt the mystery by supposing it 
lifted above the level of human fortunes, out of the tangle of 
human infirmities, human generosity, human abasements of 
penitence, human exaltations of desire. 

It is precisely in the recognition of the real and dynamic 
value, in the Church, of human life that we escape the empti- 
ness of subjectivism and virtualism. Human agency also is 
real, objective; human spirit is among the weapons of God’s 
real victory. 

We know we cannot measure the heavenly powers and 
actions contained in this gift from the Crucified and risen 
Saviour. Do nct be sure that we know the limitations of our 


7 


Sacramental Belief 


mortal share in it and that not only in response. For we know 
not the measure in which the Almighty uses the human spirit 
and human spirits to compose the instrument of his mercy and 


build the road of his august approach. 


ss Il & 
The Christian Doctrine of Man 


By N. P. WILLIAMS 
I 


sxe) HAT a piece of work is man! 
’) /A2) AS How noble in reason! How infinite 
4 £4\y in faculty! In form and moving how 
express and admirable! In aétion 
¢ ASC. how like an angel! In apprehension 
A \@ how like a god! The beauty of the 


world; the paragon of animals.” 







5x Dysste These words are placed by Shake- 

en? Oo Eg O speare in the mouth of the half-dis- 
traught Hamlet. Yet there can be little doubt that they represent 
his own healthy-minded, not to say, secular-minded, genius so 
typical of the spacious days of the Elizabethan era, when, 
under the mighty impulsion of the Renaissance, with its new 
learning and its world-shaking discoveries, man seemed to have 
shaken off the terrors of the supernatural, and to have entered 
into his earthly kingdom at last. This tendency on the part of 
man to glorify and worship himself is suggested by the name 
of Humanism, which is applied to the Renaissance movement 
in its more intellectual and scholarly aspeéts, and it expresses 
itself vividly in the painting and sculpture of the sixteenth and 
succeeding centuries, in which the hieratic and mystic feeling 
which had informed medieval art is totally absent, in which 
the frank glorification of the human body is the main motif, 

8 


Poe 
LS 


The Christian Doctrine of Man 


saints and angels being treated merely as heroes and nymphs, 
excuses for the celebration through esthetic forms of the transi- 
tory glory of these frail houses of clay. The Renaissance, as 
its name implies, was a rebirth of the old Greek point of 
view which was based upon the assumption that “ Man is the 
measure of all things”; that health and physical beauty, 
prudence, mental balance, and a sense of proportion are the 
supreme virtues; that if there be any gods they are too far 
away from us to have much direct influence on our lives; and 
that the most perfectly developed human beings represent the: 
highest Standard of mental and moral excellence that exists 
in the universe. Hence, Pope could write, ““ The proper Study 
of mankind is man.” This proneness of man to admire and 
adore himself, with Narcissus-like self-complacency, has 
grown with his growth in scientific knowledge and in mastery 
over the forces of Nature, until it has culminated in the 
attitude of mind symbolized by Swinburne’s audacious blas- 
phemy: “Glory to man in the highest, for man is the master 
of things.” 

Yet side by side with this increasing pride in himself and 
his own achievements we can trace a current of self-deprecia- 
tory feeling, of dissatisfaction, of the consciousness of moral 
imperfection and interior discord, which comes to light in 
other sayings of secular poets and sages covering much the 
same period of time. We may think of the cynical philosophy 
of La Rochefoucauld which finds the taint of selfishness run- 
ning through all man’s noblest a¢tions, and reduces all his 
virtues to highly sublimated and subtly disguised forms of 
self-love. Few writers have given a more vivid expression 
to the sense of an inherent frailty and unhappiness attaching 
to our nature than Byron, whose own profligate life was well 
summed up in the line which describes the youth of Childe 
Harold, “For he through sin’s long labyrinth had run,” but 
who, nevertheless, ascribed his depravity to 


“This hard decree, 


This uneradicable taint of sin”’; 


and few human utterances have better expressed the contrast 
between the beauty, order, and regularity of the external 


9 


Sacramental Belief 


universe and the chaos which reigns in the lesser world of 
man’s soul, than the lines from “ Manfred ”’: 


“How beautiful is all this visible world! 
How glorious in its action and itself ! 
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, 
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 
To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence, make 
A conflict of its elements and breathe 
The breath of degradation and of pride, 
Contending with low wants and lofty will, 
Till our mortality predominates, 
And men are—what they name not to themselves, 
And trust not to each other.” 


Even Shelley, in whom the revolt of man against tradition, 
whether religious or political, finds its most furious expression, 
is constrained to sing— 


‘the Universe 
In Nature’s silent eloquence declares 
That all fulfil the works of love and joy, 
All but the outcast man.”’ 


The catastrophe of the Great War, in which the triumphs 
of man’s intellectual and scientific progress were perverted by 
his selfish rage to be the means of his own destruction, has 
for the time being, at any rate, shattered the complacency 
with which he had been accustomed to contemplate his own 
nature and achievements; and the immense growth of that 
subtle science of the mind, analytic psychology, which has 
sprung from the study of the mental and nervous ruin 
wrought by the War in so many of its victims, has at least 
refuted Pelagianism, and shown man that the self, so far from 
being a proud autonomous sovereign, is rather a theatre in 
which elemental and imperfectly co-ordinated impulses Strive 
for the mastery, a unity of appearance rather than of reality, 
needing help from without to save it from itself Though 
it will not admit the faét, the thinking portion of the world 
has once more come to a position substantially identical with 

10 





The Christian Doctrine of Man 


that underlying the Psalmist’s poignant utterance: ‘“‘ Behold 
I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother con- 
ceived me.” Although it knows it not, it is prepared to affirm, 
with St. Paul, that “‘ The evil that I would not, that I do,” 
and to utter the despairing cry “ Who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death?” 


I 


It is on this consciousness of an inherent flaw in human 
nature, a flaw to which St. Augustine gave the name of 
“ original sin,’ that the whole scheme of traditional Christian 
doétrine, considered as an ordered logical fabric, is built. 
From this fundamental psychological faét certain elements in 
the Jewish Church (followed by the Christian Church as a 
whole) argued backwards to the idea of a great primeval 
revolt against God, pictorially bodied forth by the apocalyptic 
Story of the Fall of the Angels and the Biblical narrative of 
the Fall of Man; and Christianity argues forward to the 
necessity of an Incarnation and of redeeming grace, so as to 
insure that the beneficent purpose of the Creator should not 
be permanently defeated. That such grace should be imparted 
through Sacraments or sensible symbols is not, indeed, 
logically inevitable, because various other ways of imparting 
grace might be thought of; and, indeed, the noblest Catholic 
theologians have always maintained that God is not bound 
to his own means. But the sacramental method of bestowing 
grace is evidently congruous with man’s double constitution, 
half spirit, half animal; and that grace is, in fact, so bestowed 
is guaranteed by Christ’s own words and appointment. To the 

ueStions, then, which are necessarily raised by reflection on 
oe faét of man’s inherent weakness—namely (1) “ How did 
this weakness originate if God made all things very good?” 
and (2) “ What is the remedy whereby this weakness may be 
healed?” Catholic Christianity returns two fairly clear-cut 
answers, which constitute the doctrines—firstly, of the Fall; 
and, secondly, of grace imparted mainly, though not ex- 
clusively, through Sacraments. 


II 


Sacramental Belief 


Ill 


Now the logical scheme in which these doétrines inhere 
can best be understood if it is contrasted with its rival, the 
theory of human nature and of the mode of its redemption 
from sin, which represents the infiltration into Christianity of 
that joyous, optimistic, selfcomplacent estimate of man and 
his achievements, which was briefly sketched at the beginning 
of this paper. According to this rival view, the normal man 
as he exists to-day conforms, so far as his nature is concerned, 
with complete exaétness to the idea of man as eternally 
conceived in the mind of God. There can, therefore, be no 
question of a “Fall” of any kind, not even of an ideal or 
transcendental kind. Man’s nature is perfect, even though his 
actions may not be, because he possesses an exquisitely 
balanced and unhampered freedom of the will, so that his 
sins are to be accounted for by the simple Statement that he 
has chosen to sin, and no inherent flaw or infirmity need be 
postulated. Hence, it is always within his power to redeem 
himself by merely choosing to do right, and all the external 
assistance that he needs to enable him to do right consists in 
instruction and information as to what actually zs right. The 
Redeemer, therefore, need be no more than a merely human 
sage who has given such instruction to the world, partly in 
the form of express precepts, and partly as embodied in the 
example of his own life and martyrdom. A great man, who 
combines the qualities of Rabbi and Prophet in their highest 
forms, is amply sufficient for this rdle. Hence, even if it could 
be proved that such a sage bequeathed to his followers rites 
symbolizing purification from sin and the acquisition of 
moral Strength through self-sacrifice, such rites would occupy 
a very subordinate place in the Christian syStem; they would 
be means which the individual might either use or discard 
as he found that he was either helped or not helped by them. 
They would be very far from being means of grace in an 
exclusive or even in a primary sense; and, indeed, the con- 
ception of “grace” itself would mean little more than the 
emotional suggestiveness which may attach to inspiring 

12 


The Christian Doctrine of Man 


hymns, eloquent sermons, noble literature and architecture, 
and the various agencies which man has himself designed 
for stimulating his own higher life. I do not assert that this 
rival scheme is actually held, in the Stark uncompromising 
outlines which I have sketched, by any one individual of those 
who claim the name of Christian but repudiate the char- 
acteristic conceptions of Catholicism. Nevertheless, it is not 
unfair to take it as representing the highest common factor 
of the positions underlying the thought of those who de- 
nounce sacraments as “magical” and “mechanical”; and 
the consideration of it will make the opposing points of the 
Catholic scheme Stand out with greater vividness. For the 
conception of a perfectly autonomous man, king of himself 
and of this planet, Catholicism substitutes the idea of a man 
who is a king indeed, but, in Dr. Gore’s phrase, “a discrowned 
king”; who represents a grave declension from the beauty and 
glory which belong to human nature as conceived in the 
Creator’s mind; whose free will, though real, is handicapped 
and circumscribed by the influences of a mySterious con- 
natural disease or infirmity. Given this conception of man, it 
follows that mere instruction is not much more useful to him 
than the reading over of a prescription would be to a man who 
was suffering from a deadly disease. He knows well enough 
what is right through the dictates of conscience; like St. Paul, 
“he delights in the law of God according to the inward man,” 
but he sees “‘a different law in his members warring against 
the law of his mind.’ What he needs is, not so much inStruc- 
tion but power; and ex Aypothesi he cannot generate this 
power himself. It must, therefore, be infused into him from 
without; it must be divine, objeétive, supernatural, and this 
power is what we mean by “grace” in the language of 
technical theology. Hence, the Redeemer, if he is to merit 
that name, must be not merely a source of instruction, but a 
fountain of power; and as this power must be divine in its 
essence, the Redeemer must be personally God, manifest 
under the conditions of human flesh. And if the Word really 
was made flesh and tabernacled amongst us, then we can be 
sure that none of his a¢tions, and least of all the solemn deeds 
that he did at the Last Supper, were trivial, otiose, or 
13 


Sacramental Belief 


irrelevant to man’s highest interests. If, therefore, he did 
declare that consecrated Bread and Wine were to be identified 
with his Body and his Blood, and that the solemn actions of 
blessing, breaking, and distributing them were to be repeated 
until the end of time, his intention cannot be otherwise inter- 
preted than as a purpose to unite human souls to himself in 
the most intimate, subtle, and penetrating manner conceivable, 
so as to become one bone, one flesh, and one spirit with him, 
and his divine life must be regarded as the power which heals 
the inherited infirmity of their souls. Most of the points in this 
scheme will form the subject of discussions by subsequent 
speakers. What I have to say this afternoon is simply con- 
cerned with the two points which form the presuppositions of 
the Catholic doétrine of the Holy Eucharist, and together con- - 
Stitute the traditional doctrine of man or human nature— 
namely, the character of the inherited disease, and the charaéter 
of that remedy which is technically described as “ grace.” 


IV 


Much light can be thrown upon the charaéter of the disease 
by the consideration of the facts revealed with regard to the 
Structure of human personality by modern psychological 
analysis. Many persons suffer from obsessions or neuroses, of 
which they fully recognize the irrationality, but from which 
none the less they are unable to free themselves. Such minor 
mental ailments, in regard to which the older science was 
powerless, have now been traced back to the repression of 
one or other of the fundamental instinéts of human nature. 
Such repression is due to the dictates of society which, for 
example, may oppose an immovable barrier to the individual’s 
love of power or desire for self-expression and self-display by 
consistently refusing him a position in which the self-regard- 
ing instinét could be indulged. But when thwarted ambition 
gives rise to some pathological symptom, it is because the 
decree of society has only been accepted by the individual in 
an external sense: it has not been inwardly adopted and made 
his own. In Bradley’s phrase, he has not learned to “ will 
his station and its duties,” but is in a condition of mental 


14 


The Christian Doctrine of Man 


revolt against the authority which keeps him in a lower place 
than that to which he thinks he is entitled. If the individual 
in question had possessed a social sense so highly developed 
that his desire to serve the community and to acquiesce in 
its will was equal to or greater than his desire to assert him- 
self, the confliét would be non-existent, and the symptom 
would cease to exist. Hence, at the bottom of all such 
emotional disorders there lies a deficiency in the social sense, 
which is love in its widest form. The same principle seems 
to hold good in the wider field of moral evil as a whole. The 
sinner is unable to control the two powerful instinéts which 
tend to issue in pride and sensuality, because he is deficient 
in the instinét to keep in harmony with the wider community 
of moral agents, human and superhuman, which is included 
and summed up in God. In the last resort, the hereditary 
infirmity consists in a congenital defect or absence of the 
love of God, and of the selfless love of one’s neighbour which 
naturally follows from it. 


V 


This method of conceiving the nature of the inherited 
wound of man’s essence will provide us with analogies 
whereby we may make real to ourselves the nature of that 
divinely appointed remedy for it which is known, in the 
language of technical theology, as “grace.” The idea of 
sacramental grace, of an objective divine healing and help 
bestowed through or in connection with external visible 
actions, has been strongly denounced as “ sub-personal”’ and 
“unethical.” Those who hold it are accused of reducing the 
human soul to the level of a material thing which can be 
charged with a quasi-physical fluid, and of ignoring the part 
which the higher regions of man’s personality, consciousness, 
reason, and will, have to play in the work of his san¢tification. 
And a distinguished Scottish theologian, Professor H. R. 
Mackenzie, has declared that the Catholic and Protestant 
conceptions of grace are “ eventually incapable of being merged 
in a higher unity.”’ He justifies this by the Statement that “ to 
the Catholic, grace is ethical in aim and yet at the same time 


hyperphysical in charaéter and operation, dispensed through 
15 


Sacramental Belief 


an infallible and hierarchical institution, and charged with a 
mysteriously san¢tifying power, which is manifest supremely 
in the Sacraments. To the evangelical Protestant, grace is the 
free active love of God to sinners, so personally present in 
Christ as to elicit faith by its intrinsically persuasive content. 
It is no mere supernatural force emitted: by Deity—which 
might have no relation to Jesus, or only the barest—but the 
Father’s will of saving mercy exhibited in the person of his 
Son.” I maintain that Professor Mackenzie’s di¢tum, and the 
whole objection to the idea of sacramental grace which lies 
behind it, rest upon a double misapprehension. In the first 
place, Professor Mackenzie does not, I think, allow for the fact 
that “grace”’ in the technical language of Catholic theology 
does not mean the same thing as the word “ grace”? when used . 
in the English version of the New TeStament to represent a 
Greek word which would be better translated as “graciousness” 
or “ fayour.”’ We do, indeed, believe in God’s “ graciousness ” 
as a quality of his being, but we maintain that this gracious- 
ness issues in the operations of a positive healing power, 
which is “sanétifying grace” in the Augustinian and theo- 
logical sense of the term. There is no incompatibility what- 
soever between the New TeStament conception of God’s 
‘‘ graciousness ”’ and the theological conception of his “ grace,” 
understood in a dynamic sense. On the contrary, they 
mutually involve and presuppose one another. Secondly, Pro- 
fessor Mackenzie makes the mistake of imagining that 
Catholics think of God’s grace as something impersonal, as 
a mysterious effluence or spiritual electricity projected forth 
by him; whereas, in point of faét, for Catholics the grace of 
God is nothing other than God himself, redeeming and 
rescuing in the person of the Son, sanétifying and healing in 
the person of the Spirit. Grace, therefore, in Catholic 
terminology, so far from being conceived as something sub- 
personal or mechanical, involves the activity both of divine 
and of human personality in the highest degree. I proceed 
to develop the analogy suggested by our psychological account 
of man’s inherited disease in order to elucidate the strictly 
personal and ethical charaéter of the sacramental remedy. 

I have suggested that the congenital disease of human 

16 





The Christian Doctrine of Man 


nature may be conceived as an inhibition or repression which 
blocks the flow of man’s emotional energies in a Godward 
direction, and diverts it in excessive volume into the channels 
of the two other primary instinéts. Now a lesson may be 
learnt from the methods employed by those surgeons of the 
mind, whom we call psycho-analysts or psycho-therapists, in 
dealing with injurious repressions of lesser importance. The 
first Step is to discover the existence of such repressions, to 
drag them up into consciousness and reveal them to the 
patient himself. Sometimes the effect of this is to dissolve 
away the inhibition so that no further treatment is needed. 
Often, however, this is not the case, and treatment by analysis 
has to be succeeded by treatment through suggestion. The 
physician gently and gradually reduces the emotional dislocation 
from which the patient is suffering by monotonous, soothing, 
and often repeated formule, which implant in his subcon- 
scious mind ideas of health, peace, freedom, and joy, there 
to germinate and to leaven his whole being. But any success- 
ful practitioner in the art of healing through suggestion will 
tell you that his work is not confined to the mere vocal 
repetition of quasi-liturgical incantations, but that he has 
to put his whole will-power into it; that virtue in a real sense 
goes out of him, so that at the end of a full day’s work he is 
left emotionally and physically tired; and that the successful 
practice of the art involves a setting up of a telepathic bond 
between healer and patient, energy and vitality being invisibly 
transfused from the consciousness of one into the subconscious- 
ness of the other. The healer and the healed become for a 
limited time, and in a very imperfect degree, a spiritual unity, 
their personalities in some incomprehensible manner interpene- 
trating and blending. 

This beneficent relation between two human beings gives 
us a category by means of which we may represent to our- 
selves the ineffable relation between the great Physician, Jesus 
Christ, and the disordered soul in which he dwells, and which, 
with the slow persistence of infinite love, he is gradually 
conforming to the image of his own perfect humanity. In 
and through the union of the soul with him, which is effected 
through Baptism, strengthened in Confirmation, and _per- 

Cc 


17 


Sacramental Belief 


petually renewed and refreshed through Holy Communion, 
the mutual interpenetration of healer and patient is seen 
raised to its highest power. It was suggested some years ago 
by a scholar of great distinétion, the late Dr. Sanday, that the 
subconscious in man is that part of his personality which is 
most accessible to direc? Divine influences as distinct from the 
indirect influences which are mediated through Study, inter- 
course with fellow-men, reading of the Bible, and other 
activities of the conscious mind. The suggestion was received 
with less respect than was its due, partly because Dr. Sanday’s 
main eminence lay in the sphere of critical and exegetical 
scholarship, and the world of theologians is subject to the 
same perversity as the wider world of mankind in general, 
which is prone to assume that because a man is eminent in | 
one sphere it is therefore impossible for him to think of a 
good or useful idea in connection with another. Nevertheless, 
I venture to revive the view which he put forward, which 
seems to me to rest upon a true theory of the nature of 
personality, and of the operations of the Divine being; and 
I would maintain that if the analogy of psychotherapy be 
worked out consistently, it gives us a theory of sacramental 
grace which entirely eludes the reproach contained in the 
epithets “ mechanical’? and “sub-personal,’’ and reveals the 
term “grace” as Standing for nothing other than the living 
Lord himself, inwardly manifested in all the splendour of his 
Deity indissolubly united to his glorified humanity, penetrating 
the subconscious selves of his disciples through the power of 
his Spirit, and by inaudible, yet most real, suggestions of peace 
and purity, Strength and unity, gradually transforming them 
into the image of himself. Such divine suggestions, operating 
in the region of the unconscious, no more exclude the co- 
operation of the conscious reason and will than do the sugges- 
tions imparted by a human psycho-therapist. It can only be 
described as “‘ unethical,” if the communication of the roseate 
flush of health to a pallid and anemic sufferer, through the 
transfusion into his veins of blood from a vigorous and health 
body, be unethical; it only merits the epithet of “sub- 
personal,” if, in defiance of the accepted usage and the 
eStablished discoveries of modern péicholget the connotation 


18 


The Christian Doctrine of Man 


‘ 


of the term “personality”? be limited to that comparatively 
small area of man’s total being which is illuminated by the 
glow of consciousness. And its acceptance would clear away 
the difficulty which holds many good and earnest Christians 
back from the full Catholic belief in our Lord’s sacramental 
presence—the difficulty, namely, that the hypothesis of his 
special visitation of us in Communion seems to imply that he 
is absent from us at other times; for we could then regard his 
permanent indwelling and his specifically Eucharistic coming 
as parts of one continuous, life-long a¢t of soul-healing, 
normally proceeding below the threshold of consciousness, 
but rising into an intensity of realized joy and ardour in the 
reception of the Sacramental Body and Blood. 


VI 


A complete account of the Christian Doétrine of Man 
should include some Statement of the traditional view, not 
merely of his present sinful condition and of the historical 
origin of that condition, but also of his last end and future 
destiny. I should be travelling too far outside the limits of 
my allotted subject if I were to embark upon an exhaustive 
formulation of Catholic eschatology; but this much, at any 
rate, may be said, that according to Scripture and Catholic 
tradition, death as we know it, with its associations of gloom 
and terror, formed no part of God’s original plan for his 
human creatures, and is to be regarded as one of the conse- 
quences of the remote and mysterious event which we know 
as “the Fall,’ however that event may be conceived. Three 
years ago I ventured to suggest, in the University church at 
Oxford, that the difficulty in the way of this doétrine, raised 
by the fact that geology proves pain and death to have existed 
upon this earth millions of years before man was born, will 
be removed if, following up the hints let fall by some of the 
Greek Fathers, we conceive the Fall as an infinitely remote 
Ss ata catastrophe, which has vitiated the stream of 
ife in all its forms, and not merely in man. But however that 
may be, we seem compelled by the Pauline teaching that 
death is the reflection and symptom of sin, or at least of 


19 


Sacramental Belief 


moral weakness, to assume that, but for the “Fall,” man’s 
transition from this plane of earthly existence to the higher 
sphere, which is his true home, would have been painless, 
and devoid of those accompaniments of horror, gloom, and 
corruption which now surround it; his body of flesh and 
blood would have been refined and transubstantiated into 
pure spirit without the necessity of a violent physical dissolu- 
tion and decay. As it is, the body of flesh must needs be sown 
in the furrows of the grave, before the spiritual body, free and 
glorious, can spring from its ruins, like the butterfly from 
the chrysalis. Yet, as an earthly physician can to a certain 


extent heal the body by suggestions implanted in the soul— 


“For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form, and doth the body make” — 


so the heavenly Healer can work upon our bodies through our 
subconscious minds by his beneficent suggestion, not merely . 
Strengthening and refreshing these bodies of clay which are 
destined to see corruption, but building up within them the 
germ of the body of glory, which will be the perfeét vehicle 
of spirit in our eternal beatific State. In this sense the Holy 
Eucharist is the true ddppaxov aBavacias, the “ medicine of 
immortality.” The culmination of the Christian Doétrine of 
Man is summed up in the words of our Prayer of Humble 
Access, “that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his 
Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, 
and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.” 


20 





‘The 
Context of the Eucharist 


3 1 & 
Sacraments in Other Religions 


By BASIL E. BUTLER 


a Ea fOS Sa SACRAMENT may be described as a 
SY Y; EoP\; ceremony in which an outward sign is 
SH) used as a means of conferring grace, 
a \Q~ Wand a sacramental religion is one in 
ps , Which grace is believed to be given, if 

<9 \ not by any means exclusively, yet 
, Recalls and assuredly, in conne¢tion 
22Q YY with ceremonial actions and formule 
~ S25y or sacred things. In this broad and 

oa sense, ate course, sacramentalism is almost coextensive 
with religion Gesclf, and it is clearly necessary, for the purposes 
of this paper, to sae a seleétion from the material at our 
disposal. We will therefore restrict our attention to ceremonial 
eatings and drinkings, in what are known as the “ Mystery- 
Religions ” of the epoch and region in which Christianity took 


its rise. 






I 


What were these myStery-religions? They were in the main 
sectarian and un-Hellenic cults making their way out, each 
from its own primitive national setting in Persia, Asia Minor, 
Egypt, or elsewhere into the Mediterranean cosmopolitan 
culture of the centuries immediately preceding and succeeding 
the commencement of the Christian era. They made their 

21 


The Context of the Eucharist 


appeal, not to society in its collective aspect, but to individual 
men and women, without respect to sex or class or nationality. 
And the supreme boon which they claimed to ensure to their 
adherents was a blissful immortality in the presence of the 
gods after death. In fact, we may say that the idea of im- 
mortality played a role in the mystery-religions as central as 
that of ethical holiness in Judaism. Their vogue was probably 
in large measure due to the supersession of the old national 
or city-states, first by the great supernational monarchies of 
the Hellenistic age, and then by the Roman Empire. The old 
religions had been bound up with the old political forms and 
entities, and the overthrow of the States dealt a severe blow to 
the prestige of the religions connected with them. At the 
same time the pressure upon the individual of the old, narrow, 
but acutely self-conscious social life was relaxed, and men 
began to realize at once their own individuality, no longer as 
Athenians or Spartans merely, but as men, and also their 
individual religious needs. Thus the old religions no longer 
satisfied, and a gap was created which the mystery-religions 
helped to fill. These cults lacked many of the qualities which 
we have learnt to associate with sound religion; they were 
deficient in dogma, and offered myth where we should de- 
mand history; the ethical considerations in them, when present 
at all, were rather accessory than essential, and they had neither 
the confident monotheism of Judaism and Christianity, nor 
—on the whole—their proud exclusiveness. Nevertheless, they 
appealed to the populace, partly by means of an attractive and 
sometimes gorgeous ceremonial, by the mystery that sur- 
rounded them and the romance of their alien aspect and 
origin, and again by the hopes they held out of a blessed 
after-life. Most of them were concerned with gods who were 
apparently held to have passed through sorrow, suffering, or 
death to a happiness beyond these woes, and this complex of 
good arising out of evil was brought home to the heart of the 
worshipper by ceremonial and ritual, whose ultimate effect 
may, at least in some cases, have been held, already as early 
as the beginning of the Christian era, to have included 
some identification of the deity and his worshipper. At a 
somewhat later date (c. A.D. 150) Apuleius, in the “ Meta- 
22 


Sacraments in Other Religions 


morphoses,” narrating his hero’s initiation into the Isiac 
mysteries, tells how at the end, when morning came, the 
neophyte was dressed in a robe and adorned like the sun, and 
made in fashion of an image, and was made to Stand on a 
platform and solemnly displayed to the congregation; it would 
seem that here we have an example of identification with the 
deity. But it must be clearly understood that our evidence for 
the mysStery-religions is scanty, scattered, often late, and in- 
complete; that what is true of one such cult in one period may 
well be untrue of another, or of the same cult at an earlier 
date; and that though there was in later paganism a confusion 
of the different cults, and a kind of coalition and unification 
of the various pagan religions against the growing menace of 
Christianity, this coalition was yet a slow process, and must 
not be supposed to have got beyond its initial stages in apostolic 
times. The great days of the mysStery-religions were yet to 
come; at present they were Still alien cults, to a large extent 
independent of one another, but all involved in the Westward 
progress which took Christianity also at an early date to Rome. 


II 


How far were ceremonial eatings and drinkings included 
among the ceremonies of the mystery-religions? This question 
can best be answered by an examination of the various cults 
one by one. First, there are two mystery-cults which have a 
better claim to be considered Hellenic than most of those we 
have been considering: these two are the Eleusinian and the 
Orphic. 

(a) Clement of Alexandria (‘‘Protrept.,” ii, 21) gives us as 
the password of the Eleusinian religion the following formula: 
“T have fasted, I have drunk the porridge (kykeon), I have 
taken from the chest, having wrought [or perhaps, ‘ having 
taSted’], I have put back in the basket and from the basket 
into the chest.”” This porridge, or barley-drink, is presumably 
associated with the porridge wherewith the Eleusinian mystery- 
goddess Demeter was said to have broken her nine days’ fast 
of mourning for her abducted daughter. As Dr. Farnell says: 
“Tt is probable that the votary felt, in drinking the barley- 


+5 


The Context of the Eucharist 


drink, a certain fellowship with the deity, who by the story 
had drunk it before him.” In the broadest sense of the word 
this may be considered a sacramental act, but of any deeper 
significance than that of a sympathetic fellowship with 
Demeter we have no evidence. 

(5) The evidence for ceremonial eating and drinking in the 
Orphic mySteries is of the vaguest. It should be remembered 
that the common charaéteristic of the myStery-religions is the 
secrecy with which the central rites and ceremonies are veiled 
from the knowledge of the uninitiated, a secrecy comparable 
to that of the Freemasons to-day. We have thus to conjecture 
what may have happened from very uncertain indications. 
For the Orphic ceremonial we may consider three classes of 
evidence: (i) that from the Orphic mythology, as probably — 
bearing some relation to the ritual; (11) that from the non- 
Orphic public ritual of the Orphic god, Dionysos—for the 
worship of Dionysos was not restricted to the Orphics, but 
preceded the rise of that seét; (iii) the evidence of some wall- 
paintings from Pompeii which, the Italian scholar, Macchioro, 
thinks, depict an initiation into the mysteries of a conflate 
Eleusinian and Orphic sect. 

(i) The Orphic mythology tells how the infant god, Dionysos, 
was enticed away from his nurses by the giant Titans, torn in 
pieces and eaten; he was subsequently born again of the high 
god, Zeus, and man is sprung from the ashes of the Titans, 
whom Zeus slew with his thunderbolt. We are thus compact 
of the evil nature of the Titans (identified with our bodies) 
and the divine nature of Dionysos, whom they had consumed, 
our souls being this divine part of us; and our task and aim 
are to escape from the prison-house of the body and live beyond 
the grave the untrammelled existence of the immortal gods. 
It should be noticed that it was apparently “in connection 
with the initiatory rites”’ that “Orpheus,” according to the 
tradition, “handed down the rending of Dionysos by the 
Titans ’’ (Diodorus, v, 75, 4). 

(i) There survived in Crete down to the latter days of 
paganism the orgiastic worship of a boy-god, among the 
ceremonies of which, according to the Christian writer, 
Firmicus Maternus, there took place a rending with the teeth 


24 





Sacraments in Other Religions 


of a “live bull’’—we must suppose that Maternus has some- 
what misrepresented the performance, and that what actually 
took place was the slaughtering of a bull, whose flesh was 
forthwith eaten raw—it is hard to imagine a live bull allow- 
ing himself to be rent by human teeth. Another Christian 
writer (Arnobius, v, 19) speaks of Dionysiac ceremonies in 
which the worshippers twist snakes round themselves, and, 
“to show that they are possessed by the divine majesty of the 
god, tear with bloodstained lips the flesh of Struggling goats.” 
There are other indications which suggest that in some cases 
the animals thus treated may possibly have been in some way 
identified with the god Dionysos, who, you will remember, 
was himself held to have been torn in pieces and eaten by the 
Titans. 

(iii) The wall-paintings at Pompeii show, in one of a series 
of panels, a meal at which the person undergoing initiation 
takes part, and, in the next panel, Macchioro thinks he can 
descry a female satyr suckling a kid. It is, of course, probable 
that the meal has sacramental significance, at least of the very 
vague kind suggested for the Eleusinian porridge; and it is 
conceivable that the kid is in some sense to be identified with 
Dionysos. But in order to make it even probable that the food 
eaten is identified either with the kid or with Dionysos, it 
would have been necessary for the order of the panels to be 
reversed; and it is unlikely that Macchioro has mistaken the 
order in which the pictures are to be read. It should further 
be pointed out that the double climax of the passion and of 
the exultant joy of the neophyte seems to occur at a later 
Stage than that in which the meal is eaten and the kid depicted. 
Thus the evidence for an Orphic meal of any more than the 
most indeterminate sacramental significance is so far vague 
and inconclusive in the extreme. I will add, however, one 
piece of evidence that might show more than this if it could 
be proved that it refers to Orphic mysteries, and not to non- 
Orphic Dionysiac rites. A Greek editor’s note on Clement of 
Alexandria’s “‘ Protreptikon ” (i, p. 433D) says: “ Those being 
initiated to Dionysos used to eat raw flesh, performing this 
rite as a representation of the rending which Dionysos under- 
went at the hands of the Menads.” But in the Orphic myth 


35 


The Context of the Eucharist 


it was apparently the Titans, not the Mznads, who tore 
Dionysos in pieces; the note, then, for what it is worth, cannot 
be taken as evidence for Orphic rites or ideas. 

(c) We pass on to the ceremonies of the Attis-religion. This 
was a Phrygian religion which was extending its influence in 
the Mediterranean at about the time of our Lord’s earthly 
life, and was probably san¢ctioned at Rome by the Emperor 
Claudius (who is mentioned in Aéts as contemporary with 
St. Paul). A formula of the Attis-religion is preserved by 
Clement of Alexandria: ‘‘I have eaten from the drum, I have 
drunk from the cymbal, I have borne the sacred basket, I have 
gone down into the marriage-chamber.” It should be observed 
that drum, cymbal, and basket were among the paraphernalia 


of the religion. A similar formula is given by Firmicus’ 


Maternus: ‘“‘I have eaten from the drum, | have drunk from 
the cymbal, I am become a votary (“ myStes’) of Attis.” Here, 
doubtless, we have in the broad sense a sacramental partaking 
of food and drink; but it has been argued that the food and 
drink were actually held by the believers to convey life to the 
soul. For Firmicus Maternus, from the Christian point of 
view, asserts that, as a matter of fact, death is the sequel to the 
pagan meal, and recommends, as the true food of life, the 
Bread and the Cup of Christ. But the contrast of life and 
death, as following respectively the pagan and the Christian 
sacramental meal, may have been suggested to the mind of 
Firmicus by his own remark that the Attis-worshipper uttered 
the words of the formula “ that he might be admitted, a man 
about to die, in the inner parts of the temple.” The com- 
parison of Christian and pagan sacred foods goes back to 
St. Paul and recurs in St. Justin Martyr, and it is quite possible 
that Firmicus has exaggerated the similarity of the significance 
of the two things. In any case, it must be remembered that 
he is writing centuries after Apostolic times, and that there is 
Still one further Step to go, even beyond admitting that the 
food and drink in the Attis-rite were life-giving, before it 
could be asserted that they were in any way identified with 
the god himself. 

(d) In an inscription relating to the Great Gods of Samo- 
thrace, we are told (if the inscription has been correétly 


26 


a a ee ee 


Sacraments in Other Religions 


emended): “ The priest shall cut up and administer the cake, 
and distribute the liquor to the votaries.” 

(e) Again, there is a Statement in St. Justin Martyr* 
(“Apol.,” I, 66) to the effect that in the mysteries of Mithras 
the demons have contrived a caricature of the Christian 
Eucharist. For bread and a cup of water “are set forth in the 
initiatory rites with certain forms of words” (or “a form of 
words” or “ incantation”). The water was apparently mixed 
with Aaoma-juice, or possibly (in the West) with wine. We are 
also told that at one stage in the ceremonies honey was applied 
to the tongue. There is, of course, a possibility that this Mith- 
raic rite 7s an imitation of the Christian Eucharist, though—as 
with almost all the ritual eatings and drinkings discussed 
above—it seems to have formed part of the imutiatory cere- 
monies, whereas the Eucharist is the often-repeated meal of 
those who are already Christians. It is interesting that the 
worship of Mithras was probably already common in Asia 
Minor before the beginning of the Christian era. 

(f) With regard to the Egyptian-Hellenistic deities, Isis and 
Serapis, we have an interesting papyrus in which a certain 
Chairemon invites someone to dinner “at the table of the 
Lord Serapis, in the Serapzum, to-morrow,” and we are told 
by Aristides that unto this god alone men share in the real 
communion of sacrifices, inviting to the hearth and setting 
him forth as banqueter and host. If this refers to a mysStery- 
worship of Serapis, it is one of the closest parallels to the 
Pauline presentation of the Eucharist (x Cor. x). But there 
is no trace here of an identification of Serapis with the meal 
that is eaten. 

We have now considered the important cases of sacred 
eatings and drinkings in the mystery-religions, so far as the 
scanty evidence will allow. On the basis of these faéts a 
theory has been built up, which may be divided into two 
parts: (a) It has been suggested that some at least of these 
meals were “ theophagic ’—7.e., that at least in some of them 
the worshipper believed himself to partake of the very sub- 
Stance of his god; (4) it is then argued that the Christian 


* Cf also Tertullian’s reference to the Mithraic meal. 


af 


The Context of the Eucharist 


Eucharist owes its character of a partaking of the Body and 
Blood of Christ to the influence of the myStery-religions. It 
is asserted that such a sacrament cannot be supposed to have 
originated in its present form with our Lord, whose human 
nature expressed itself in forms congenial to his Palestinian 
Jewish environment—an environment to which a sacramental 
meal consisting of the Body and Blood of a supernatural 
being would be completely alien. This, however, is often made 
one part of a larger theory, which is concerned to explain, as 
a distortion of primitive Christianity by pagan influence, not 
merely the sacramentalism of the Catholic Church, but its 
Christology also. 


III 


We are here to deal only with that aspect of this far-reach- 
ing theory which concerns the Eucharist. And it may be 
pointed out, at the outset, that the Catholic who believes in 
the divine overruling of the Church can confidently sub- 
mit the matter to the best historical criticism, convinced that 
even should paganism be shown to have had any material 
influence on the Eucharist, such influence would not have 
been exerted without the permission of God. As a matter of 
fact, the theory lays itself open to severe criticism. 

(a) It will be recalled that in our examination of the sacra- 
mental eatings and drinkings in the mysStery-religions we 
could find no clear trace, early or late, of the idea of eating 
the god. Even the idea of life being conveyed by the Attis- 
meal is only to be inferred with considerable doubt from the 
remarks of a late Christian writer. For actual theophagy we 
have to turn to what can be conjectured concerning non- 
mystery Dionysiac cults in Greece, Crete, and the Aigean 
Islands, and to the barbaric or primitive ideas of Egypt and 
other environments remote from that of St. Paul. But if we 
can find no trace of theophagy in the mystery-religions, their 
sacramental meals cannot give us much positive assistance in 
explaining the Christian Eucharist; for to find religious meals 
in the neighbourhood of early Christianity we need go no 
further than the Jewish se¢ct of the Essenes; thus the idea of 
such a meal might well have come, not merely to the 


28 





Sacraments in Other Religions 


Palestinian Apostles, but to their Master himself, quite apart 
from the myStery-religions; while the actual nature of the 
Food and Drink, as the Body and Blood of Christ, can be 
paralleled by no extant analogies either among the Jews or in 
the myStery-religions of that age. 

(2) It must also be remembered that New Testament 
Eucharistic thought seems to cluster round the idea of sacri- 
fice; St. Paul compares the Eucharistic Food and Drink with 
the sacrificial offerings at the Jewish Temple and with the 
animals “ sacrificed to idols.” And “ the New Covenant in my 
Blood ” recalls the blood of the sacrificial offerings wherewith 
Moses sealed the Old Covenant. But it would seem difficult 
to detect any sacrificial ideas associated with the ceremonial 
meals of the mysteries, except probably that Aristides’ evidence 
with regard to Serapis points in this direction, for that god’s 
worship alone. 

(c) Again, it is a cogent argument, that, in contrast with the 
majority of the Gentile religions of the time, Christianity, like 
Judaism, was proudly and self-consciously exclusive. To become 
a Christian was not so much to gain a somewhat fuller insight 
into the nature of religion—it was to turn from idols to serve 
a living and a true God. Thus, quite apart from the secrecy with 
which the myStery-religions enveloped themselves, borrowing 
from them on the part of the early Church is almost incon- 
ceivable. In particular, Dr. N. P. Williams has pointed out, 
and Dr. A. E. J. Rawlinson concurs, as to the enormous a 
priort improbability that St. Paul, whose attitude towards 
pagan cults varies from abhorrence to contempt, “‘ should have 
unsuspectingly allowed the texture of his devotion and his 
thought to become saturated by conceptions borrowed from 
those very “ MySteries’ which it was the object of his mission 
to deStroy.” I am glad, also, to be able to quote Professor 
Percy Gardner (Modern Churchman, vol. xvi, 6-8) to the 
effect, not only that “there is no adequate evidence for the 
notion that there was in the pagan Mysteries anything at all 
parallel to the Christian Eucharist,” but also that, generally 
speaking, he thinks “we should be sceptical as to any direét 
influence of the MySteries on Christianity.” Parallelism, he 
says, “is far more probable than derivation.” 


29 


The Context of the Eucharist 
(d) Then, finally, if we turn to the evidence of the New 


Testament itself, we are Struck by St. Paul’s assertion: “I 
have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto 
you,” with which assertion he prefaces his account of the in- 
Stitution of the Eucharist, including the words, “‘ This is my 
Body,” “This cup is the New TeStament in my Blood,” and 
“This do in remembrance of me.” “I have received of the 
Lord” might conceivably mean “I received by direé revela- 
tion, independent of any human tradition.” But the follow- 
ing considerations make it probable that what St. Paul means, 
and what is the fa¢t, is that he received this piece of inStru¢tion 
from the Christian or Christians who prepared him for 
baptism, and imparted to him the traditions of Christianity 


at Damascus twenty years before, and that he believes it to © 


rest ultimately on the authority of our Lord himself in his 
earthly life. 

(i) Both here and in 1 Cor. xv, where he is recalling the 
traditional teaching with regard to our Lord’s death and 
resurrection, St. Paul seems to identify his own relationship to 
the tradition with that of his converts; but since they obviously 
received it from human lips as part of the common deposit of 
Christian truth, it is reasonable to suppose that he did too. 

(ii) Both the Style and the content of the succeeding verses 
suggest that they are a piece of sober Christian, almost credal, 
instruction, and not that St. Paul is relating visions of the 
Lord and things ineffable. 

(iii) The words “‘ This is my Body,” “ This is my Blood of 
the New TeStament” are found in the Marcan account of the 
Last Supper. This gospel was probably written by a Christian 
Jew of Jerusalem, who had been a companion of St. Peter, 
and who produced his work at Rome c. a.p. 67. The Roman 
Church was thriving, as we can see from the Epistle to the 
Romans, long before St. Paul came into personal contaét with 
it. In the circumstances, it is paradoxical to suggest that St. 
Mark’s gospel contains an account of the Last Supper which, 
as to its essentials (and highly controversial essentials they 
would surely have been), is based merely on a vision of St. 
Paul. 

(iv) There is no clear trace of any controversy in the early 


30 


ee Te 


Sacraments in Other Religions 


Church caused by this version of the Eucharist; but St. Paul’s 
opponents among the Judaizers might have been expected 
to seize on an innovation by him of such a kind. 

Thus we are driven to the view that St. Paul owes his 
Eucharistic teaching to tradition, and there is every probability 
that he received it shortly after his conversion. Now, quite 
apart from the fact that this is narrated in Acts before the 
great appeal to the Gentile world at Antioch, and that (con- 
sistently with this) St. Paul was baptized by a man with the 
Jewish name of Ananias (and in fact would never have gone 
to Damascus unless there were there enough Jewish Christians 
to make their extradition worth while), the early date and the 
region to which this Eucharistic teaching has thus been thrust 
back seem to make “ myStery-religion”’ influence almost in- 
conceivable. 

We conclude that what we know and what we do not 
know about the myStery-religions, along with the general char- 
acter and spirit of early Christianity and St. Paul, and, finally, 
the actual evidence of the New TeStament itself, critically 
considered, constitute three great converging probabilities, 
leading on the whole towards the conclusion that Christian 
Eucharistic ideas and practice, at the Stage of their develop- 
ment represented by St. Paul and St. Mark, are in all essentials 
free from the influence of the mystery-religions. 


aI 


The Context of the Eucharist 


te IL & 


The Sacraments of the Church and 
the Presence of God in Nature 


By N. K. H. A. COGHILL 


<9 E live upon an obscure planet; our 
kK, solar system lies aloof from the main 
p, constellations of the sky, and is asa 
fringe or tassel pendant from them, 
and at a great distance. Compared to 
the larger companies of Stars and their 
satellites this world and its fellow 
HANG FAN | WS planets that spin round the sun might 
WS air" eo aig M be thought to have the importance of 
a few moths circling about a candle. Yet this earth, little 
and remote as it seems when we look at the shining company 
of the Milky Way, is no less governed by the laws of Nature 
which science interprets to us, and no less informed by the 
brooding and immeasurable spirit of God, whom we most 
surely approach through the sacraments of the Church. 

By “‘ Nature” I mean that ordered mechanism of the sen- 
sible Universe which we believe to have been either established 
at the Creation, or to have evolved since in obedience to 
regular and mechanical laws—laws which can have scientific 
recognition, and by which the material Universe as we know 
it is thought to persist. On the other hand, that is Supernatural 
which can be neither measured, proved, nor disproved by the 
experiments of science, but which is none the less felt in our 
deepest convictions to be the Will or Presence of God, pene- 
trating or working within the limits of Time and Space 
through the instrumentality of Matter. Thus the natural is 
that which may be apprehended and measured, the super- 
natural that which may be apprehended but not measured. 


32 







The Presence of God in Nature 


Any human mind which fairly contemplates the unhesi- 
tating regularity of the processes of Nature is at first overtaken 
by an awe akin to desolation. Relentless and impersonal forces 
seem to control natural phenomena: blind and blundering 
forces, whose routine is so absolute that it does not swerve 
even to protect a great planet from the flaming lash of a 
wandering comet’s tail. These forces permit and are mani- 
feSted in Storms and plagues, earthquakes and eruptions; they 
are not concerned to prevent the material worlds in which 
they operate from being shattered in their courses or swallowed 
up in fire. In our own world natural phenomena are seen to 
minister indifferent destruction and prosperity to mankind, 
without intention to do good, without regret for doing irrepar- 
able harm. The Nile floods its banks, and part of Egypt is 
enriched. The Mississippi floods its banks, and part of America 
is laid waste. Lightning will Strike church, cottage, or crag with 
dispassionate ferocity. Nothing is more palpable than the utter 
indifference of Nature to human happiness and human catas- 
trophe. 

All these forces of Nature imply what we call Power, and 
the notion of power is associated in the human mind with 
some Personality that exercises that power. Primitive races, 
seeing many powers in Nature, have multiplied the personalities 
responsible for them, and have invented countless gods and 
demons to whom they attribute the beneficent and malignant 
operations of Nature respectively. Anthropology can furnish 
scores of nature spirits imagined by the savage mind to in- 
habit the winds, to speak in the voice of thunder, to preside 
over the fertility of crops and animals, bringing good luck 
or bad according as they are kind or cruel, pleased or angry: 
for the savage eye sees trees as men walking, and a demon in 
eerie shadows of a grove. Such mentalities hasten to make 
obeisance to the imagined sources of their fears, and, in order 
to placate these uae fancied spirits, they have devised 
rituals and sacrifices attended by every circumstance of cruelty 
and lust. The doétrine that one man mut&t die for the people 
has produced a sad tale of victims all over the world through 
the ages, and the witch-do¢tor has perfected the technique of 


his magic in seas of animal and human blood. Often these 


D 33 


The Context of the Eucharist 


savage religions have offered analogies to Christianity so hor- 
rible and grotesque as to seem a devil’s parody; and many 
kindly and reflective men have turned away from the Faith 
of Christ simply because they could see in it no more than 
the relics of barbarous and primitive superstitions. 

This sense of a calculating power or powers in the forces of 
Nature has not been abandoned even in civilized times. The 
conception has become less crude; animism and polytheism have 
given way to monotheism, and the Hebrew Bible has taught 
Islam and Christendom that there is but one God, “‘ who 
made the round world so fast that it cannot be moved at any 
time,” and “ who made the Stars also.” But although a Study 


of the Old Testament offers a grand perspective of the human 


soul realizing God in progressive Strides, from the early con- 
ception of a tribal deity, easily jealous, easily provoked, to that 
of the architeét of the Universe, and no respecter of persons, 
he was Still conceived of as being specially and physically 
present in certain material objects, such as the Ark of the 
Covenant, which it was death to touch, and in certain geo- 
graphical spots, as Zion or Horeb, to be approached bare- 
footed, like the burning bush. This notion that God is now 
contained by, or physically resident in, any dead material 
objeét is absolutely non-Christian and non-Catholic, though 
it is often ascribed to Catholicism by people who misunder- 
Stand Catholic teaching on the Sacraments in general and 
especially on the Sacrament of the Mass. 

Another civilized development of the idea of the Unity 
of God is the concept that he is a pervasive spirit resident or 
immanent in the substance of all matter; this pantheistic 
doctrine accepts the Universe as it appears to the senses, and 
endows those appearances with an inner life which is declared 
to be the immanent Godhead. The poet Wordsworth has 
perhaps given the most moving expression to this idea. This 
is his claim: 

“T have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns 


oO 


ee a NT ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 


1 


The Presence of God in Nature 


And the round ocean and the living air 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man 
A motion and a spirit that impels 

All thinking things, all objeéts of all thought 
And rolls through all things. . . .” 


This intuition of the immanence or residence of God in 
Nature, which conceives of him as pervading and penetrating 
all local and temporal obje¢ts, is an emotional intuition, and 
as such is attackable by contrary emotions and by logic. We 
may be emotionally satisfied to perceive God resident in the 
material composition of a flower; we are less glad to recognize 
him in the material composition of a cancer. We may feel his 
essence interfused in hemp, but not in the hangman’s rope. 
These, however, are mere feelings; and feelings depend on 
the natural senses that feel them, and these in turn depend 
internally on the State of our health, and externally on the 
appearances known as Time and Space. In fact, these feelings 
have only the sham guarantees of emotion and appearance, 
and inevitably give a local and temporal twist to our concep- 
tion of God. When this happens, religion begins to be 
degraded. 

Let us, then, briefly consider what we feel about Time and 
Space, and whether we can transcend them in thought, so as 
to reach a larger idea of God’s Presence. 

Owing to the relation in which we, by nature, stand to 
this so-called material universe, we cannot help thinking of 
Space as that in which certain hard objects in three dimensions 
exist, and of Time as a perpetual series through which they 
exist. We see ourselves in Time as though we were on a 
regular and endlessly moving Stairway, with our backs turned 
to the direction in which we are going; we can see what has 
passed; we cannot see what is to come: act follows act, cause 
follows effect in a Steady progression that can be counted by 
clockwork. Or we may think of Time as a long, Straight 
road—length without breadth—along which we must move 
willy-nilly: when we think of Eternity, we imagine this road 
infinitely continued in either direction; continued, that is, until 
the mind tires of imagining it, which point, in our littleness, 


35 


The Context of the Eucharist 


we call Infinity. We cannot, for instance, visualize Time as 
an area, for we perceive in this life only the length and not 
the breadth. It raises little or no image in the mind to speak 
of a State of Timelessness from which an observer could view 
all aéts that ever were or will be, all movements that ever 
were made or are Still to be made, in one simultaneous and 
comprehensive. Perception. Difficult as such a conception is to 
grasp, it is essential to forming even the first notion of Eternity. 
For by Eternity is not meant the road of Time indefinitely pro- 
duced, but a State in which there is no distinction between what 
was and what is and what is to be. So, too, with Space. The 
mind, operating in a three-dimensional body, having length, 
breadth, and height, is no more capable of visualizing a fourth, 
fifth or mth dimension of Space, than a creature of two 
dimensions such as a shadow, endowed with consciousness, 
and living in Flatland, could understand that there was any- 
thing above him, or that there was any such thing as aboveness. 

A human being is accustomed to think pictorially, and 
makes pictures out of the materials offered to him by his five 
senses, and so Man, working with apparently three-dimen- 
sioned bodies, moving at a regular speed along a groove in 
the expanse or possibly cube of Time, finds it hard to conceive 
of any vantage point from which he can be viewed except in 
terms of Time and Space as he understands them, and which, 
as he does so, limit his understanding. His very language is 
shaped by the elementary conditions of Time and Space. He 
says God is visible zm this substance, or through that substance, 
or under such and such a veil; so that the very words “in” 
and “through” and “under” give the wrong and spacial 
notions of God, who is a spirit. It is not as though God were 
light, heat, or electricity, or any other vibration of matter, for 
the prepositions used to describe them imply something that 
can be measured scientifically; the light is zz an electric bulb, 
the heat is 72 a calorimeter, or the current is im an eleétric 
wire, and can be measured. In all use of such prepositions we 
must remember that we are drawing metaphors from Time 
and Space, almost without noticing that we are doing so, and 
that no Statement about the Sacraments which involves pre- 
positions invented for use in Time and Space, can be considered 


The Presence of God in Nature 


as literally true. At the institution of the Last Supper, Christ 
used no preposition, but said simply: “‘ This is my Body .. . 
this is my Blood.” My meaning and belief on this point will 
appear more clearly later. Meanwhile I must return for a 
moment to the necessity of conceiving God as existing in the 
No-Time, No-Space of Eternity. He is Alpha and Omega, 
beginning and end fused into a single concept. 

It is possible for rare souls of the mystical or contemplative 
kind to reach a perception of the Timeless, Spaceless Presence 
or Will of God. The highest point of contemplation reached 
by the great mystical minds, seems to the scoffer an insane 
paradox. It may be briefly described as a State of intense 
activity which is also wholly passive. A State in which the 
mind is utterly emptied of every thought and picture, and in 
which the emotions and senses have ceased to operate upon a 
natural plane; and yet a State in which the soul, transcending 
the limitations of its own body, as of Time and Space, knows 
that it is joined to the absolute Fountain of all that is, by which 
union it expands into an activity of joy so greatly given and 
received that it cannot be communicated in any human 
language.* Those who have felt this can understand the 
sentence of William Blake: ‘“‘ The body is that part of the 
soul which is perceived through the five senses.” It is of 
this State that St. John the Divine spoke, though limited by the 
infirmities of human metaphor, in describing ‘‘ Angels that rest 
not day or night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God 
Almighty which was and which is and which is to come.” 

We have already seen how humanity has struggled towards 
the vision of God, first in the forces of Nature, through fear 
of destruction or through hope of fertility, a struggle attended 
by bitter cruelties and superstition. We have further seen the 
gentler convictions of deep-thinking prophets and poets that 
thought of God as a pervasive spirit dwelling throughout the 
range of Matter, and I have suggested how difficult of logical 
acceptance is this doctrine of the Immanent Presence of God 
in Nature, since the human mind has not yet discovered what 


* Vide Dom Cuthbert Butler, “‘ Western MySticism.” Constable and 
Co., passim. 


37 


The Context of the Eucharist 


exactly Matter zs, nor has it been able scientifically and experi- 
mentally to transcend the limits of Time and Space through 
which it is forced to work. It has only been able to transcend 
these limits in the imaginative thought, whether secular or 
religious, of contemplative or philosophical minds. 

Put briefly, the conclusion is that many of the best minds, 
whether Christian or not, have been led to the following two- 
fold proposition: first, that the timeless and spaceless spirit of 
God is partially and occasionally mediated through Time and 
Space, or, to use another Hee ones that the supernatural can, 
in faét, invade the natural without material alteration of 
Nature. Secondly, that the human soul can at rare moments 
achieve cognisance of, or union with, this Spirit, whence it . 
receives an unspeakable Love or Grace, and that this act of 
union is the highest activity of the human soul. That this 
double proposition is the germ of what Christians call the 
Sacramental theory of Life is obvious when we turn to the 
Church Catechism. 

Q. “ What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?” 

A. “JT mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and 
spiritual grace, given unto us... .” : 

Before finishing the quotation, let it be observed that the 
broad sacramental principle, summed up in the two headings 
just dealt with, is not necessarily dependent upon Christianity. 
It is the second half of the quotation that is exclusively 
Christian : 

“Ordained by Christ himself as a means whereby we re- 
ceive the same and a pledge to assure us thereof.” 

In other words, we claim our authority for regarding the 
Sacraments as regular in their operation, to be the infallible 
authority of Christ. Thus we are not left in darkness and 
doubt. For although, as we have seen, any member of the 
human race, whether born before Christ or since, may reach a 
conviction that Nature is informed or sustained by a vast spirit 
with which he can have flashes of joyful communion, yet this 
conviction depends upon his mood at the moment. At times he 
has the vision, at times he feels the grace. Then both seem to 
vanish and he is left in loneliness, having no guarantee either 
for the validity or the recurrence of his experience. Such a 


38 





The Presence of God in Nature 


man would perhaps gladly forgo the vision so that he were 
fortified by the grace; for vision is an appearance to the 
senses, a mere interpretation of Reality, whereas grace is Reality 
itself, and may be drunk down generously and even uncon- 
sciously into the soul, so that the soul knows not even that it 
has been blessed. Thus, without the authority of Christ, the 
reception of grace by contact with God is an irregular experi- 
ence, depending not upon faith in the Divine authority and 
promise of Christ, but upon the wayward and fallible emotion 
of the moment, whether reasonable or hysterical, whether re- 
acting to reality or to illusion. But’ within the Church, having 
Christ’s promise, we know that we receive grace, through the 
Sacraments, whether we are immediately conscious of this by 
vision or emotion or not. It cannot be too often insisted that 
our emotions in receiving any sacrament of the Church are of 
hardly any importance, depending as they do so largely on 
biological causes. What matters is the reception of that Reality 
into our souls which Christ promised to all who ask in faith. 
Faith is not an emotion, but a continuous intelle¢tual operation 
of the will in a specific direétion. It is useless and irrelevant 
for a man to complain that he sees no visions and feels no 
ecstasy at Mass. If he accepts the Sacrament in faith, he will 
receive the grace, whatever he feels about it. Who but a fool 
would hanker for an appearance when he has received a reality? 
“ Blessed is he that hath not seen and yet hath believed.” 

To the Christian the complete and absolute example of the 
sacramental principle in operation is the Incarnation of Christ. 
In that unique event the Will and Presence of God was really, 
wholly, and exclusively embodied in the flesh and blood of a 
man, without in any sense abating the omnipresence of God, 
which, as I have tried to explain, should be taken as meaning 
the simultaneous presentation of all facts in Time and Space to 
God who is Love without or beyond Time or Space. 

Now the Incarnation of Christ was a faét to which a par- 
ticular date in time, and a particular spot in space can be 
ascribed—that is, in Palestine, nearly two thousand years ago. 
We have seen, too, that the supernatural does not interfere 
with the natural, but invades or co-operates with it: therefore, 
viewed as an event in Time and Space the Incarnation was 


39 


The Context of the Eucharist 


bound to come to an end. Had Christ not died as men die, 
the Incarnation would not have been as completely human as 
it was completely divine. The death of Christ was therefore a 
necessary fact. Consequently, it is evident from the nature of 
Nature that all human souls could not be present upon earth— 
nay more, in Galilee—at the time of Christ’s Incarnation. 
Therefore, in order that the benefits of the sacrament of the 
Incarnation might not be lost to posterity, it was necessary for 
Christ to institute means by which those benefits might be 

erpetuated for ever through Time and Space: otherwise 
itera access to God would have remained the sporadic 
irregular and unreliable thing of emotional experience which 


it was before, and which it Still is to all who do not avail them- . 


selves of the regular sacramental life of the Church. The 
means which he instituted were an organization of simple 
natural phenomena, converted by his Will into a mechanism 
through which supernatural a¢tivity could be known to operate 
independently of mere emotional apprehension. It was to be 
continued along the road of ‘Time through the human agency 
of ministers, chained in a long chain of hands to his own 
nailed hands by the consecration of bishops and the ordination 
of priests. This mechanism was designed to meet both the 
immediate and quotidian needs of the human soul and also 
those of the great landmarks of human life. At birth, baptism, 
which Christ himself received as an example. In later life, 
marriage, which he adorned and beautified with his Presence 
in Cana of Galilee, and of the inviolability of which he so 
often later spoke. In sickness, unétion, which was also figured 
forth upon his own Body. For the daily needs of the soul, 
the Sacrament of the forgiveness of sin, and the Sacrament of 
the altar. 

This last presents and is a memorial of the Last Supper and 
the Sacrifice of the Cross, which we, born too late in time, 
can never see, but the grace of which is conveyed to us that 
receive in faith, by his promise. And the explanation of how 
these things can be is most clearly understood if we grasp the 
fact that the baptism in Jordan, the wedding in Cana of 
Galilee, the anointing of Jesus, the commission given to the 
Apostles, the forgiveness of sins, the sacrifice on Calvary, and 

40 





The Presence of God in Nature 


all the other benefits of the Incarnation, which to us are in 
time past, are, in Eternity, that Spaceless Timelessness that I 
have tried to describe, present to God for ever, for God needs 
no book and no recording angel, having the whole expanse of 
all that ever was and is and ever shall be eternally present to 
him. Our Sacraments, memorials in form, are by the will 
of God and promise of Christ identified with their prototypes 
which are present to God, though past for us. For this reason 
Christ said: “‘ This zs my Body, and this zs my Blood; do this 
in remembrance of me.” Thus the sacrifice of the Mass is not 
a new sacrifice, but is identified with the original complete, 
perfect, and sufficient sacrifice of Christ, in Time, on Calvary, 
by the supernatural sacramental means of transcending Time 
and Space (the mere counters by which we feel and think) 
and through which God can co-operate with our Faith at his 
pleasure, for the reception of the benefits of the Incarnation of 
his Son. We do not live by bread alone. 

It may be objected that, if all this talk of the relativity of 
Time and Space be true, why did not Christ explain it him- 
self? The answer may be put in his own words: “ Suffer little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” The Religion 
of Christ offers intellectual problems, and will always do so; 
for every succeeding age invents its own problems in Chris- 
tianity, and finds its own solutions, as the march and counter- 
march of thought and science continues. That Christians 
should make an effort to collate scientific discovery with 
religious truth is well enough. But the essential is that no one, 
however simple or subtle, should be shut out from the sacra- 
mental life; that is, from the benefits that flow from the In- 
carnation, which a child as well as a philosopher can under- 
Stand and believe, words which no discussion can either em- 
bellish or obscure, if they are read with the loving attention of 
faith. It matters less that we should understand the Sacra- 
ments than that we should receive their benefits. 

Finally it may be questioned: “Is it necessary to embark 
upon a method of life which involves the supernatural?” The 
plain mind may argue that a natural man living in a natural 
world may live a healthy and contented natural life, observing 
decent behaviour on ethical rules which he has evolved for 


41 


The Context of the Eucharist 


himself without help from Biblical codes or supernatural grace. 
It is possible for a man never seriously to transgress the moral 
law, and to be what is called “a good man” without any 
other assistance than the Strength of his private judgment and 
free will. 

To these assertions there are many objections which may 
be briefly condensed under two headings: 

In the first place, psychology teaches that the total mind of 
every individual, whether conscious or subconscious, is a thing 
so tortuously complex, so sensitive to suggestions over which 
he has no control, and so subtle in reactions that may involve 
him in the grievous ruin of a disordered and multiple per- 
sonality, that no one at all can trust himself so far as to assume 
that he can get along by himself, even though he may 
speciously appear able to do so, and to dispense with the help 
of God. The second objection which I will mention here is 
this, that the end of true religion is not merely to live a good 
life, and to be tolerably free from moral guilt. For true religion 
the natural good life is not the end: it is only the indispensable 
preliminary. As Blake wrote: “If morality was Christianity, 
Socrates was the Saviour.” 

The end and object of religion is union and communion 
with the Will and Presence of the eternal Lord of Love. A 
soul wilfully evil cannot communicate with this Absolute 
Good; therefore a sincere effort to live a moral life is a pre- 
liminary necessity, and the Christian religion teaches the means 
for this; but the Christian religion has also more to offer the 
human soul than a system of rectitude. For a Christian, to be 
good is not enough. It is like having an unused passport to the 
Kingdom of Heaven. To enter that Kingdom it is necessary to 
know the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that avenue through 
which Reality has chosen specially and infallibly to manifest 
itself; it is necessary to tune the soul to those overtones that 
can at times be caught in the light of setting suns and in the 
living air, overtones the benefits of which are made ever avail- 
able to us through those channels appointed by Christ to con- 
du& to posterity the merits of his Incarnation and Passion, 
and these channels are the Sacraments of the Church received 
in Faith. 


42 


ee ee 


The Presence of God in Nature 


Here is the reconciling of the controversy between faith and 
works. First, by works, to Strive after the good life, which 
is the life of love, lived in time and space, and secondly, 
by faith, to be united to that good Life which is the life of 
Love Eternal, beyond and transcending time and space, to 
the reception of the vigour and understanding of the Spirit 
of Truth, poured out from the Sacrament of the Incarnation 
that is Still present to God, and is made present to Man through 
the organism instituted by Christ—namely, the Sacraments of 
the Catholic Church. 


sei III] & 
Sacraments and Mysticism 


By EVELYN UNDERHILL 


f7\ HE subject of this paper is one on 
INF’/ which many people have very cloudy 

% ideas; and I think that it will be well 
D~, worth while to begin by considering 
HMQW just what we mean by these two words. 
By a sacrament, then, I mean the 
f Supernatural given to men through 
>S.9, natural means. That is, through the 
SSO IVE consecrating touch, through the 
hallowing and special use of physical things—oil and water, 
bread and wine. A sacrament gives us the invisible Reality by 
visible ways. That is really the same as the definition of the 
Catechism: it is an outward sign of an inward grace. I think 
this definition will apply to all sacramental religion, and not 
only to the Christian Sacraments. Everyone who really uses 
a sacrament believes that by these physical things and physical 
actions spiritual work is truly done. 

What is a mystic? At first sight, it seems as though he 
were the exact opposite of a sacramentalist. For a mystic 


43 






: ; 
SY (aeAac 


The Context of the Eucharist 


is a spiritual realist: a person for whom the Invisible is a 
matter of more or less vivid first-hand experience, and not 
only of accepted belief. He feels and knows the Presence 
and Aétion of God; his relation with spiritual realities is 
personal and direét. He is conscious of the supernatural sun- 
shine to which most of us are blind, and of an intercourse 
which goes on in the deeps of his soul between his little 
dependent spirit and the infinite Spirit of God. 

Now it looks as though such a type of religion as this had 
no need of, and little contaét with, the sacramental sort 
of religious outlook and practice. Why seek and receive God 
through consecrated things and outward deeds? Why insist 
on the need of meeting him at the altar, of receiving his 
regenerating grace at the font, when he is so clearly present 
with his creature in the soul’s secret life? The mystic beyond 
all other men can say with absolute conviction: “ He is not 
far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and have 
our being.” So, why these special ritual actions? And why 
this consecrating of physical things, if all things are already felt 
and known to be immersed in his all-sustaining love and life? 

This sort of thing has, of course, been said, and these con- 
clusions have been drawn, by many hurried admirers of 
“pure” spirituality. It has constantly been assumed that there 
is an essential opposition between mystical religion and sacra- 
mental religion; and that persons who use external means of 
grace must be on a lower spiritual level than those whose com- 
munion with God is without means. But when we come 
to look at history—that remorseless deStroyer of religious 
generalities—and test these ideas by fa¢ts, what we find is 
that the very greatest Christian mystics, from the fourth 
Evangelist onwards, have also been great sacramentalists. 
They agree with Suso that it is a greater thing to be able to 
find the inward in the outward than only to be able to find 
the inward in the inward. 

It is perhaps the greatest glory of Catholic mysticism that 
it teaches souls to make that discovery, and so discloses the 
very principle of the Incarnation—God self-given to men in 
terms of our little human life—stll ceaselessly at work within 


the world. Just because of their deeper knowledge of God, 
44 


—— 2 





Sacraments and Mysticism 


their fuller sense of his mystery and richness, the mystics find 
more, not less, reality than others do in his sacramental gifts. 
And because this deeper knowledge brings with it a sense of 
the distance which separates even the most spiritualized 
human nature from the Divine Nature, they know the soul 
requires something given to it from beyond itself—the actual 
food of Eternal Life—if it is to grow up to the fulness of 
the stature of Christ. Thus we find even such wonderful 
contemplatives as St. Catherine of Siena and St. Catherine 
of Genoa, whose souls were wide open towards the Eternal 
World, most humbly and gratefully receiving the gifts of 
that World in their daily communions. 

It is said of St. Catherine of Siena that Holy Communion 
was the very centre of her inner life, the gateway to ecstasy; 
and that even her bodily existence seemed to depend on it. 
For St. Catherine of Genoa, one of the least churchy and 
conventional, most platonic, most metaphysical of all the great 
women mystics, the Eucharist was the absorbing devotion of 
her life. She, who dwelt in God as in an ocean of love and 
life, called it “the heart’s true food,” and in a period when 
such praétice was rare, she obtained permission to be a daily 
communicant. 

Again, it is to St. Thomas Aquinas, a great philosopher and 
a great mystic, whose conception of the Nature of God went 
far beyond the symbols and images by which men try to 
express what he is, that the Church owes her greatest 
Eucharistic hymns. And Ruysbroeck, the most lofty of the 
great medieval contemplatives, with his wonderful accounts 
of the soul’s self loss in the fathomless ocean of the Godhead, 
yet never lost his passionate devotion to, and dependence on, 
the Blessed Sacrament; and Eucharistic language appears 
again and again in his most transcendental works. And while 
it is true that isolated groups have constantly arisen through 
Christian history, which have sought the inward at the expense 
of the outward, and violently rejected symbols, ceremonies, 
and sacraments in their quest of pure spirituality, it is certain 
that these groups have always tended to become narrow, in- 
tense, and sectarian, and their members have fallen short of 


the highest and humblest types of saintliness. In repudiating 
45 


The Context of the Eucharist 


external religion, they have somehow missed that full rounded 
richness of the myStical life, which is able to turn to spiritual 
use both the body and the soul of man. 

What, then, are we to make of this? Why is it that just 
those persons who most vividly realize the spaceless and 
infinite God present in the soul, those whom more than any 
others we can think of as speaking to him as one friend with 
another, are yet impelled to seek him most humbly and 
ardently in finite ways, and through homely, outward, and 
visible signs? I think the reason is given us in that great 
utterance of St. Augustine, the father of Christian mysticism, 
in which he says to God: “Thou wert more inward to me 
than my most inward part, and higher than my highest.” 

“Thou wert more inward than my most inward part ”’— 
that is the Quaker doétrine of the inner light; which, taken 
alone and unchecked, slides so easily into pantheism, and if 
regarded as the whole truth, of course leaves no place what- 
ever for the sacraments. But for St. Augustine and the great 
mystics of his tradition it is zot the whole truth. “Thou wert 
higher than my highest!’’ That is the adoring sense of God’s 
transcendent Perfection, the Holy, the Supernatural, the Un- 
changing: a level of Reality, wholly other than the soul, 
unreachable by man’s own effort, and yet for which the 
awakened soul longs and thirsts. 

That conception means something which we can never 
find by exploring our own souls; something so high that our 
utmost spiritual reach cannot attain it, and which must be 
given to us from outside ourselves. The great myStics, in pro- 
portion to the width and depth of their vision, are ever con- 
scious of this exceeding richness of God, beyond all his 
manifestations in Nature, and all that their souls can compre- 
hend; and of their own tininess, yet their need and longing 
to receive him. No unpacking of the soul’s portmanteau, 
however spiritual its contents, is going to satisfy their thirst 
for Reality; for they know themselves to be, not merely clever 
animals, specially good products of the immanent Life-force, 
but children of the living God with a capacity for Eternal 
Life; inheritors of the supernatural Kingdom of Heaven. 
And, therefore, for the full development of the seed of life 

46 


4 Ne. Sa ine 


Sacraments and Mysticism 


within them, they know they need the free gift of Eternal 
Life from beyond them; the grace that leads on to sanétity. 
This is not a result of the evolutionary process—it comes from 
beyond the world. “Thou givest them bread from heaven to 
eat.”” And if that gift is to be made to all faithful and loving 
souls, and not just to persons of spiritual genius; then it 
must be made in ways which are suitable to a creature who 
is Still immersed in physical life, who is living the life of the 
senses as well as the life of the Spirit, and is unable to draw 
too sharp a line between them. It must come, then, by visible 
signs and deeds, and not by spiritual intimations alone. 

Here, then, Christian mysticism expands to embrace not 
only the dim, but real discovery of the Spirit of God within 
the soul, inciting it to holiness; but also the discovery that 
God must come zo that soul along the channels of sense—that 
is, through sacramental grace—in order to make this holiness 
possible. Wherever man becomes spiritually awakened, it 
seems that these two great facts become clear to him. First, 
that God must come to him with supernatural gifts before 
he can even begin to move out to God. And, next, that God 
must continue to feed and support him from without, if he 
is to continue that movement towards God. In other words, 
Baptism and Holy Communion are sacraments which represent 
vital faéts in the myStical history of every soul. 

They mean that*no soul can achieve its full destiny simply 
by developing its own interior resources; that theories of 
evolution and emergence only tell half the truth. For man 
is an amphibious creature; he Stands on the borderland be- 
tween the natural and supernatural worlds, and his achieve- 
ment of the supernatural world is not just the crown of 
natural life, it is distinét—a new Stage of Reality. The sacra- 
ments register and emphasize this difference in kind of 
Creator and creature; the littleness and dependence of man, the 
transcendence yet outflowing generosity of God. We, im- 
mersed in a world of change, need the persistent appropria- 
tion of Eternal Life, of the Changeless; and because we are 
thus subject, we need it given to us under the accidents of that 
world of change, and in close union with the faéts of in- 
carnational religion, Just because God is wholly other than 


47 


The Context of the Eucharist 


ourselves, such crumbs of his life and glory as we are able 
to bear must come to us chiefly through history, through 
human nature, and through things. The mystics, because 
they realize more than others a little of what is meant by 
‘Eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard,” realize, too, that 
we must be content to draw near by the humble pathways of 
sense: “Him verily seeing, hearing, touching, tasting,’”’ as 
Julian of Norwich says. 

In most men, the intuition of God’s presence within the 
soul never reaches the conscious level at all. Even in the 
greatest mystics, it only does so from time to time; and were 
we left dependent on a means of knowledge so cut off from 


our ordinary ways of intercourse with reality, our religious _ 


experience would always be vague, subjective, uncertain of 
itself——dependent, not on God but on our own moods. But 
every Christian can have, though, of course, in very varying 
degrees, some kind of sacramental experience of God. Here 
the Infinite One, who is the object of mystical experience, is 
self-given to his little creatures, on the human level and in 
human ways, to meet our specifically human needs. His love 
and action need thus to be self-presented in ways closely 
related to our sense-life, through and in our earthly environ- 
ment, if they are to be quite certain of being assimilated by 
our sense-conditioned minds. 

As, if we want to feed a living and growing plant, we 
must feed it through the soil in which it is growing and not 
root it up and shake it free of soil till it is “‘ pure plant ’— 
so it is dangerous and, indeed, impossible to shake the living 
soul free of all its bodily and physical attachments, and try 
to treat it as “pure” spirit. Our souls and our senses are 
closely allied, and the God who is the God of our most 
apparently spiritual experience is also the God of our sensory 
experiences. “‘ What do I love when I love thee?” said St. 
Augustine. “TI love a certain light, melody, fragrance, savour 
of the inner man!” Thus we are reminded that even the 
greatest mystic still has his feet on this planet, and is still, 
even in his most spiritual moments, using a brain which has 
been developed through contact with the physical world, and 
which understands the messages of the senses best. Therefore, 


48 


lS. ee ee 


Sacraments and Mysticism 


an arrogant refusal to recognize that God does come to us 
through things perceptible to the senses—here and not in 
some hypothetical “spiritual world” only known in some 
abnormal state of consciousness—is bad mysticism and bad 
religion too. Just..as bad as the opposite extreme, which 
distrusts all secret, inarticulate communion of spirit with 
Spirit—all invisible religion—and tries to limit God by his 
sacraments. Either of these exaggerations spoils the depth 
and splendour of the spiritual life. Indeed, in religion, all 
which tempts us to say “this or that” instead of “ this and 
that” is dangerous, and sins against the rich and generous 
freedom of the New Testament, so full of the homely and the 
transcendental, the mystical and the sacramental, so genial in 
its acceptance and care for the body as well as the soul. 

There is room for all possible degrees of contemplation, 
and also of all possible uses of the channels of sense and of 
the outward sign, in the myriad responses of man’s spirit to 
the incitements and invitations of God. The New Testament 
assures us that for those who composed and lived by its docu- 
ments, the Kingdom of God is indeed within us; and there 
is no place where God is not. Yet, none the less, that man 
needs the distinét revelation of that same God in human ways, 
and the perpetual self-giving of that supernatural life—the 
Living Water, the Vine, the Bread from Heaven giving life 
to the world—the Eternal entering with its gifts the limited 
life of our half-animal race. It is the most myStical of the 
Evangelists who feels this most Strongly; and it is St. Paul, 
for whom the “ mystery hid from ages and now made mani- 
feSt”’ is the purely myStical secret of the Indwelling Christ, 
who yet sets going the developed Eucharistic doétrine of the 
Church. 

Genuine mysticism, which is simply spiritual realism, is 
ever Stretching towards the one Beloved Reality, who is self- 
given in all these ways; transcending yet embracing and 
harmonizing all these diverse experiences of the soul. For it, 
sacramental religion opens a door through which the 
Infinite comes with its gifts right down into the common 
life. It cannot scornfully reject the outward means, however 
crude and simple; because for it there is no outward means 


E 49 


The Context of the Eucharist 


which does not carry at least some inward grace, and it sees 
in the great sacraments of Catholicism the fullest develop- 
ment of a principle which it finds at work everywhere 
through life. The nearer the myStic in the prayer of union 
draws to the Living God, who despises nothing that he has 
made, so the nearer he draws to such an experience of the 
world as shall find everywhere his graded manifestations. St. 
Francis is, of course, the classic pattern of such a mySticism 
as this; able to recognize, welcome, and adore the coming of 
God to the soul along the most humble and most homely 
aths. 

Hite My God and all!” said St. Francis. “What art thou? 
and what am I?” Perhaps the answer of the mystic to that 
Stupendous question might be something like this: “Thou 
art the One Eternal and Transcendent Reality. I, a little 
fluctuating, half-animal creature, passing my short life upon 
a tiny planet, imprisoned in time and place—knowing only 
such fragments of thy great universe as are shown me along 
the channels of sense. Herein is the miracle of love; that here, 
on this narrow Stage, and along those very paths of sense 
through which I know and maintain my place in the natural 
world, thou, the Infinite, hast sought me, the finite, and satis- 
fied the deepest craving of my soul by the gift of thy Super- 
natural Life.” 





50 





The Eucharist and 
Revelation 


The Eucharist in the New Testament 


By EDWYN HOSKYNS 





cafe? C2 f-\\ HE Catholic Religion is the revelation 
GAT yes of the power and the wisdom and the 
Uy ON love of God in a living organism of 
Vi Te x flesh and blood. This concretion of 
ACY " HAQe the mercy of God is the divine nega- 
rt : tion of a dreamy idealism on the one 


eg hand and of pure materialism on the 
/ ER, 0 other hand. From the heart of Catholi- 
Hideo SSS cism there emerges, therefore, quite 
consistently and naturally, a rite in which human language and 
action, and the material objects of bread and wine, become 
vehicles of the revelation of Truth and means of Salvation. 

The Catholic Christian rightly asks how the Catholic Re- 
ligion is related to the religion of the New Testament, and in 
particular how its worship is related to the worship of the 
Apostolic Church and to the teaching of our Lord. 

Since liturgical worship is the result of a long process of 
adjustment in order to secure a more and more adequate pro- 
clamation of the Gospel, it is obvious that we should not 
expect to find in the Apostolic age a fully developed Liturgy. 
If, however, Catholic worship be a legitimate development of 
Apostolic Christianity, we ought to find the Gospel to be 
identical in both, and we ought to be able to discover in the 
earliest Christian writings signs of an adjustment of worship 
so that the Gospel may be thereby expressed in concrete form. 


51 


The Eucharist and Revelation 


If, on the other hand, Catholicism be an illegitimate develop- 
ment, its illegitimacy will be made apparent by the impossi-’ 
bility of discovering this identity of Gospel or of tracing any 
signs of this adjustment. 

St. John declares the whole activity of the Christian Church 
to be the manifestation of the Incarnate and Crucified Son of 
God for the salvation of the world. Consequently, he defines 
Christian worship as eating the Flesh of the Son of Man and 
drinking his Blood” He is acutely conscious that this language 
is capable of a purely materialistic interpretation. The Jews 
roundly declare it to be blasphemous anthropophagy,* and 
all but the true disciples are shocked and leave the Church 
because of this language.t But St. John refuses to ease the. 
language. In repeating the saying he retains the word 
“flesh” and substitutes a more crudely material word mean- 
ing “munch” for the word “eat.”{ He is therefore referring 
to a rite in which physical eating is integral, and he is not 
prepared to compromise the fact. Then he provides the inter- 
pretation and shows that’the significance of the Eucharist rests 
upon the Incarnation. Flesh, blood, bread, wine, water are in 
themselves nothing; only the Word or the Spirit can make 
them life-giving.§ As the Son of God, the Word, made 
material flesh and blood means of salvation, and as his con- 
crete utterances transformed men and women, blind and dead 
in sin, so bread and wine are in the Christian rite consecrated 
to be the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.v 

But the Eucharist rests not only upon the Incarnation but 
supremely upon the death of the Son of God, made to be the 
sacrifice for sin: The bread which I will give is my flesh for 
the life of the world. Divorce the Eucharist from the sacri- 
ficial death of the Son of God and from his life-giving word, 
and it becomes pure materialism; think of Jesus as anything 
but the Word or the Son of God Incarnate, and the Eucharist 
becomes pure anthropophagy; think of the Eucharist as any- 
thing but salvation from sin through the sacrifice of the Lamb 
of God, and it becomes blasphemy. This is St. John’s teaching. 


* John vi, 52. + John vi, 66-69. 
t John vi, 53-56. § John vi, 63. 


52 


In the New Testament 


Quite consistently St. John records the Last Supper as the 
occasion when the original disciples of the Lord were initiated 
into the truth, and heard the Lord’s solemn and formal dedica- 
tion of himself as the Sacrifice: For their sakes I consecrate 
myself, in order that they themselves also may be consecrated 
in truth.* St. John omits the words of institution, partly be- 
cause they were well known, but partly because he wishes to 
bring out by paraphrase what is for fae their significance. 
The Eucharist is 5 consecration of the sacrifice immolated 
on the cross. It is in no sense and in no degree an independent 
rite. In the great Christian rite, therefore, each convert is 
transported to the upper room and is initiated into the signifi- 
cance of Christ’s death, and, with St. John and the Blessed 
Virgin, he stands beneath the Cross, and appropriates the 
benefits of the sacrifice on Calvary. Except ye eat the flesh 
of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in 
yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood 
hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.t 
The language of St. John is not, as many maintain, an adjust- 
ment of the Gospel to Hellenistic sacramental mania; it is 
precisely the opposite, it is the completion of the first Stage 
of adjusting Christian worship to the Gospel. Throughout 
his Gospel, St. John is pointing out that the hostility of the 
Jews and semi-gnostic Christians to Christian language is, in 
fact, a denial of the Gospel that Jesus is the Son of God and 
had manifested himself in flesh and blood, and that his words, 
including his teaching concerning the Eucharistic bread and 
wine, are spirit and truth. 

An illustration of the same process of adjustment at an 
earlier date is provided by St. Paul in the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians. In the Corinthian Church the Eucharist had de- 
generated either into a common meal at which immorality and 
lack of charity tended to appear, or into a semi-mystical com- 
munion with an unseen Lord. In order to safeguard the rite 
from such abuse, St. Paul points out that the Eucharist is 
linked indissolubly with the sacrificial death of Christ. The 
cup is communion of the Blood of Christ, and the broken 


* John xvii, 19. t John vi, 53, 54. 
53 


The Eucharist and Revelation 


bread is communion of the Body of Christ. Since Christian 


fellowship and righteousness emerge only through appropria- 
tion of the benefits of Christ’s death, and since the Eucharist 
is the proclamation of Christ’s death, till he come, the coming 
together for such worship must be for the good and not for 
the worse. In order to enforce this intimate connection between 
the sacrifice of Chrigt and the Eucharist, St. Paul claims to 
have heard, by revelation as an Apostle, the words of the 
Lord addressed to his disciples in the night before he died, 
by which he made his death to be the sacrifice offered for their 
salvation, and initiated them into the benefits of that sacrifice. 
St. Paul thus claims for the adjustment of Christian worship 


to the Gospel, not only the authority of the Apostles, in so far 


as they remembered the Lord’s words and actions on that 
night and perceived their significance, but also the direét 
authority of the Lord himself. 

Here, again, the issue which St. Paul raises is not primarily 
the nature of the Eucharist, but the nature of Christian salva- 
tion. He is not vaguely moralizing a piety peculiar to the 
mystery-religions; he is insisting that the death of Christ is 
the only sacrifice for sin, and that righteousness and charity 
must be the marks of those who share in Christian worship, 
which is the proclamation of Christ’s death, till he come. 

Two difficult questions now arise. How is this Johannine- 
Pauline adjustment of Christian worship to the Gospel related 
to our Lord’s words and actions at the Last Supper? And how 
is it related to the worship of the primitive Church in Jeru- 
salem? Since St. Luke’s account of the Last Supper seems, 
as it Stands, to be in part influenced by the Eucharistic passage 
in 1 Corinthians, and since St. Matthew’s narrative depends 
upon St. Mark, the answer to the first question, if it can be 
answered, rests upon the exegesis of St. Mark’s record. The 
whole narrative is eschatological in form and strudture. 
Solemnly, in the presence of his disciples, and of no others, 
our Lord consecrates his death to be the sacrifice which was 
to inaugurate the Covenant which is to supersede and fulfil 
the old. He makes his Body and Blood to be for them, for 
the disciples there present, the Sacrifice, as St. Matthew 
no doubt rightly interprets, for the remission of sins. Mos 


54 


Ee 


In the New Testament 


significantly our Lord adds that this sacrifice will be effective 
for many. Through eating the bread which was his Body, 
and drinking the wine which was his Blood, the disciples 
were by anticipation incorporated in the new eschatological 
order, and made participators in the benefits of his sacrifice. 
As it Stands, St. Mark’s narrative is not the institution of a 
rite, nor is it a general statement that our Lord’s death is a 
sacrifice for the salvation of the world, still less is it merely 
a farewell meal. It is the record of the initiation of the dis- 
ciples into the benefits of the sacrifice about to be made on 
Calvary, and the revelation to them of its significance. 
Whether our Lord did or did not add words which sug- 
gested that a long period was to elapse between his death and 
the final coming of the Kingdom, and whether he therefore 
added any specific direction that his words and actions should 
be understood as instituting a rite, is an interesting historical 
and literary problem, but it is ultimately irrelevant.’ The point 
is that our Lord, according to St. Mark, did in the night 
before he died make his death to be for his disciples the Sacri- 
fice through which the Covenant of God, foretold in the Old 
Testament, was to be realized, and that the disciples were 
initiated into the benefits of that sacrifice through eating and 
drinking bread and wine, which he named his Body and Blood. » 
Consequently, when his words and actions were recalled and 
their significance perceived, and so long as the final Kingdom 
did not appear, all who desire righteousness and forgiveness of 
sins must inevitably seek them through a like initiation and 
through a like declaration of the significance of his death. 
The existing evidence provides no definite conclusion as to 
the nature of the pre-Pauline Apostolic worship in Jerusalem. 
St. Luke says that the Apostles and their converts met to 
“break bread,” but he nowhere tells us exaétly what he meant 
by that phrase. He presumes that his readers will understand 
the allusion. It is possible that in the earliest days the signifi- 
cance of our Lord’s references to his death remained obscure, 
and that the common meal was an act of fellowship not 
direétly conneéted with our Lord’s death, and that, conse- 
quently, St. Paul was a more important figure in the develop- 
ment of Christian worship than has usually been allowed. On 


55 


The Eucharist and Revelation 


the other hand, St. Luke’s omission of all the Markan incidents 
between the feeding of the five thousand and the confession of 
St. Peter suggests that he regards “the breaking of bread” as 
directly productive of Christian faith, and his description of 
the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to whom our Lord 
declared the necessity of his death, and to whom he made 
himself known in the “breaking of the bread,” points in a 
similar direction. It appears, therefore, that for St. Luke as 
for St. John, the Eucharist was creatively effective, and that 
they both found in the conjunction of the feeding of the five 
thousand with St. Peter’s confession of faith, the appropriate 
prototype of that experience peculiarly associated with the 


Eucharist.* Whatever conclusion we may tentatively accept 


as to the significance of St. Luke’s language, it seems abun- 
dantly clear that the line St. Paul—St. John—Catholic wor- 
ship 1s one line, and that it finds its adequate explanation and 
origin only in our Lord’s death and in his words and a¢tions 
at the Last Supper taken together as forming one sacrificial 
act. - 

If this be in any way a safe conclusion, it follows that our 
controversy with the Bishop of Birmingham, and with those 
whom he represents, does not concern primarily the Eucharist, 
but the Gospel. In the controversy it appears that we are being 
attacked in the interests of a sincere piety, which is, however, 
emotionally and morally, foreign to the New Testament. For 
such piety not only is the Eucharist sacrilege, but the Christian 
Statement that salvation is by the Blood of Jesus, is also ex- 
ceedingly misleading and dangerous. In this particular con- 
troversy it must in any case be stated, and Stated quite clearly, 
that we Catholics have the New Testament wholly on our side. 


* Cf. Luke ix, 12-27 with John vi, 1-15, 68, 69. 


56 


SO 


The Idea of Sacrifice Out- 
side Christianity 


Gi 1 
Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) 


By E..O. JAMES 


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Oj Ds é >; 
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HEN the spirit of historical inquiry 
pervaded the study of religion during 
the latter part of the last century, it 
became apparent that the institution of 
sacrifice represents an almost universal 
) feature of religious development in all 
Stages of culture. Hitherto the rite had 
Ys generally been interpreted in relation 

“WEF US eg ™ to the sacrificial system of the Old 
Testament, but actually this is only one example of the rite 
as it was practised in antiquity. To get a true perspective of the 
Hebrew and Christian ritual, it is therefore necessary to view it 
in the light of the institution as a whole. Thus, in the time 
allotted to me in this paper, I propose to deal very briefly 
with the principal aspects of sacrificial ritual outside Palestine, 
in the hope that thereby a clearer insight may be gained into 
the great subject to which this Congress is devoted. If to-day 
I adopt a somewhat different attitude towards the problem 
from that which I maintained in the article on “ Sacrifice,” 
Standing to my name in “ The Encyclopedia of Religion and 
Ethics,” it is because, in the ten years that have elapsed, a great 
deal of new material has come to light, making a revision of 
some of the working principles necessary to bring them into 
line with our fuller knowledge. 


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57 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


It is now clear, I think, that Robertson Smith was not 
correct when he concluded that in the earliest times sacrifices 
were really rites of communion rather than gifts to the Deity.* 
This notion he based on the practice of totemism—the belief 
that an intimate relationship exists between a group of kindred 
people on the one side, and a species of animal or plant or 
some inanimate object on the other side. But was this the 
earliest constitution of human society? We know that in the 
old Stone Age the first representatives of modern man—the 
Aurignacians and Magdalenians, as they are called—resorted 
to the innermost recesses of the limestone caves around Les 
Eyzies in the Dordogne, and in the Pyrenees, for the purpose 
of painting and engraving figures of certain animals such as — 
the bison, mammoth, and reindeer, often in the most inacces- 
sible spots. These undoubtedly were prehistoric san¢tuaries in 
which magical rites were performed to control the chase. Since 
the primitive mind does not distinguish between a picture and 
the object represented, a spell, it is supposed, can be cast upon 
an animal by drawing a design of it and marking it with 
arrows in the vital spot. 

In the great Struggle for food in which early man was en- 
gaged, it must have become apparent that loss of blood caused 
faintness, unconsciousness, and ultimately death in man and 
beast alike. It would therefore be an easy deduction from this 
observation that blood was in some mysterious way the essence 
of life, and, by the primitive law of associations, any substance 
that resembled blood, like red ochre, would be regarded as 
having a similar significance and potency. This explains the 
custom of burying the dead in red-Stained earth and covering 
the body with ochreous powder, as in the case of the Aurig- 
nacian ceremonial interments found in a cave called Paviland, 
in South Wales, and in the Grotte du Cavillon, near Mentone.t 
If blood or its equivalent was the vehicle of life and conscious- 
ness, its restoration to a dead body could but have the effect of 
revivifying it so that it might awake in the hereafter with 


* “The Religion of the Semites”’ (London, 1907), pp. 226 ff. 

+ Sollas, Journal Royal Anthrop. Institute, XLIII., 1913, pp. 325 ff; 
Obermaier, “ Fossil Man in Spain” (New Haven and London, 1925), 
pp- 132 ff. 

58 


Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) 


renewed Strength. Similarly, sacred designs were painted in 
red to give them a greater potency in hunting magic, the heart 
being frequently depicted as the centre of vitality, near which 
arrows sometimes were painted in) réd:* 

In these Palzolithic cave paintings and interments we have 
the earliest example at present known of the fundamental 
conception of the institution of sacrifice—viz., the belief that 
blood is the vitalising essence charged with life-giving power. 
For just as it was efficacious in restoring life to the dead, so it 
was thought to have similar power with regard to the gods. 
As Sir James Frazer has shown, primitive people have been 
inclined to look upon gods and human beings as belonging 
to much the same order, the king himself frequently being 
thought of as attaining to Godhead even in his lifetime as well 
as after death.t Thus in Ancient Egypt, for instance, Osiris 
probably was originally a civilising king who in process of 
time became deified,} and from the Fifth Dynasty the Pharaoh 
was regarded as the physical son of the Sun-god, Re.§ Both 
Osiris and Re were therefore conneéted with the kingship, the 
one being probably the deified ancestral king, the other the 
progenitor of the reigning house. So complete, in fact, was 
this identification of the king with the gods that in the later 
texts he is unhesitatingly called Osiris and Re in the same 
passage. 

But if kings were regarded as divine, gods who began 
life as chiefs and hetoes - were also fiortals raised to divine 
rank but Still subjeét to human limitations. They grew old 
and died. Consequently in Egypt they share with man the in- 
eStimable benefit of undergoing mummification and reanima- 
tion. Every province had a mummy of its dead god, that of 
Osiris resting at Mendes, and of Toumon at Heliopolis. | Like- 


gy L’ Anthropologie,” XIX., p. 15. 

aes Sapna Bough,” third edition, Part I.; “ Magic Art”? (London, 
1917) pp. 3 2 ff. 
Op. EG orhake IV. (“ Adonis,” II.), p. phd, Elliot Smith, “ Evolution 
of “Dragon” (Manchester, 1919), PP: 29 ff. 

§ Breasted, Rates cris Ce) Religion and Thought in Ancient 
Egypt” (London, 1912), ee 

|| A. Moret, ‘‘ Le Rituel du Culte divin journalier in Egypte” (Paris, 
1912), pp. 219 ff. 

59 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


wise in Greece, the grave of Zeus was shown to visitors in 
Crete as late as the beginning of the Christian era,* while the 
body of Dionysus was buried at Delphi beside the golden 
Statue of Apollo, and his tomb bore the inscription, “ Here 
lies Dionysus dead, the son of Semele.’’+ Cronus was interred 
in Sicily, Hermes in Hermopolis, Aphrodite in Cyprus, and 
Ares in Thrace. 

Now all this was really very serious, because the world de- 
pended on the gods, notably the Sun, for the continuance of 
life upon it. Thus in Mexico the Sun was regarded as the 
source of all vitality and, therefore, it was called “He by 
whom men live.” But he also required nourishment from the 
earth, Tezcatlipoca, the god par excellence of the Nahuan » 
pantheon, alone being credited with “ perpetual juvenility by 
the conditions of his nature.” § It was this belief that lay at 
the root of the ghastly system of human sacrifice, which con- 
Stituted the characteristic feature of the cult of Central 
America. The heart, as the centre and symbol of life, was 
extracted from the body of the victim and presented to the 
Sun to enable him to continue his daily course across the 
sky, while in March a great ceremony was held directed to 
Itzamma, the god of life and fire, and to the rain-gods (chac), 
during which a large fire was made and animals of every kind 
were killed in this manner. The hearts were then cast into the 
flames, together with models in copal of the hearts of larger 
animals, such as jaguars, pumas, which were not so easily 
captured.|| In this way the vitality of the god was renewed, 
and his beneficent offices continued in causing the life-giving 
waters to descend upon the earth. 

The ancient Peruvians in South America offered llamas 
before the Statue of Thunder and Lightning with the words, 


* Callimachus, “‘ Hymn to Zeus,” pp. 9 f. 

+ Plutarch, “Isis et Osiris,” p. 35. 

t “Golden Bough,” Part IV., “ Dying God” (1914), p. 4. 

§ E. J. Payne, “ History of New World called America” (Oxford, 
1892), I., p. 429. Cf. Brasseur de Bourbourg, “ Histoire des nations 
civilisée ”” (Paris, 1857), III. 

|| Prescott, “ History of Conquest of Mexico” (London, 1843), I., 

p- 65 ff; Bancroft, “Native Races” (London, 1875), IL, pp. 740 f; 
oyce, “ Mexican Archzology ” (London, 1914), p. 68. 
60 


Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) 


“O Creator, Sun, Thunder, and Lightning, may you ever 
remain young, may you never grow old.” * It was hoped in 
this way to secure a plentiful supply of the fertilising rays of 
the sun, and rain as the result of thunderstorms. The power 
of the Sun-god to send warmth and fertility appears to have 
depended on the sacrificial sustenance he received “to give 
him Strength always to do so.”’f It was probably from this 
conception of a sacrificial offering of nourishment to the gods 
to Strengthen and reanimate them, that the sacramental idea 
arose. If man gave vitality to the gods, might he not expect 
to be similarly nourished and Strengthened by the divinity? 
Thus a sacramental element often occurred in sacrificial rites, 
as, for example, in the well-known Aztec practice of eating 
at their May festival, images of the god Huitzilopochtli made 
of dough as the body of the divinity. On occasions the dough 
was fortified with the blood of a youth selected to impersonate 
the deity Tezcatlipoca, and then slain on the altar as the god 
himself.{ The sacramental eating of human victims offered 
to the gods was a general custom in Central America and 
Peru, § and it was also prevalent in Africa|| and Vedic India.{ 
When, with the progress of culture, animals were substituted 
for human beings, the solemn meal on their flesh usually had 
a sacramental significance, especially if the animal happened 
to be itself sacred or divine, as in the case of a totem. It 
was at this Stage in the development of the rite that totem 
sacraments appear, and not at the beginning, as Robertson 
Smith lines 

Originally sacrifice, as it seems to me, was the food of the 
gods to augment their power and life, the sacramental aspect 
growing up later as a result of the worshippers eating the 


* C. de Molina, “ Relacion de las fabulas e ritos de los Incas” (Lima, 
1916), p. 27. 

+ Cobo, “‘ Historia del nuevo mundo” (Sevilla, 1895), IV., p. 81. 

t Brasseur de Bourbourg, “ Hist. des nat. civil.” II., pp. 510 ff, 
31 ff. 
; § Sahagun, “ Hist. général des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne” 
(Paris, 1880), pp. 75 ff, 116; J. Ranking, “ History Researches on Con- 
quest of Peru and Mexico” (London, 1827), p. 89. 

|| C. Partridge, “Cross River Natives’? (London, 1905), p. 59. 

q A. Weber, “Indische Streifen”’ (Berlin, 1868-79), I., pp. 72 f 

61 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


remains of an offering after the blood had been poured out 
for the nourishment of the divinity. The belief that the special 
qualities of a man or beast could be assimilated by contact 
with his person or any objects intimately connected with him, 
is very widespread among primitive people, and may well go 
back to Palzolithic times. To the same category of ideas 
at a later Stage in religious development belongs the notion 
of getting life and power by eating the flesh and drinking 
the blood of a sacrificial victim or partaking of the first- 
fruits of the new crops. Food was the vehicle of super- 
natural properties, and, consequently, the recipient of the food 
of the gods would derive therefrom divine life and qualities. 
Thus in the sacrificial ritual of the higher religions of anti- . 
quity, the priests and worshippers feasted on the remains of 
the victim, and the meal came to be regarded as a means of 
getting divine nutriment.* How far anything which can be 
fairly called sacrificial communion, obtained in the Mystery 
religions which arose on the shores of the 4’gean and prevailed 
for several centuries before and after the beginning of the 
Christian era, has already been discussed in a former paper. 
This, happily, relieves me of an excursus on this obscure and 
highly controversial question. 

Tt now only remains to consider a third aspect of sacrificial 
ritual. The belief that the gods had a mortal nature similar 
to man, led to attributing to them other human qualities and 
feelings, such as like and dislike, love and aversion, friendship 
and hostility. Thus calamities that could not be traced to 
natural sources were regarded as due to divine agency, and 
gradually the custom arose of offering sacrifice—the so-called 
piacular—to propitiate the gods when they were angry and 
malevolent. This praétice has probably been over-emphasized 
by Dr. WeStermarckt and some other scholars, as the under- 
lying notion of sin and forgiveness is of comparatively late 


* II. 1, 457 f£; G. Wissowa, “Religion und Kulture der Rémer ” 
(Munich, Hunt pp- 353 £; H. Oldenberg, “La Religion du Véda,” trans. 
V. Henry (Paris, 1903), p. 279; M. Monier-Williams, ‘“‘ Brahmanism 
and Hinduism” (London, 1891), p. 145. 

t “Origin and Development of Moral Ideas” (London, 1906), I., 


pp. 471 £., 437. 
62 


Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) 


development. No trace of piacular expiation, for instance, 
occurs at all in Egyptian ritual, and the kippurin-rite (burnt- 
offering) was due to Semitic influence in the Nile Valley. 

In Greek religion, sin was piao~a—defilement in a non- 
moral sense—which separated man from the gods till expiation 
was made by the prescribed purificatory rites. Failure of crops, 
plagues and diseases, and other calamities were attributed to 
the anger of the gods; but while the notion of propitiation 
undoubtedly was present in the Olympian worship, it was the 
furies and spirits of the dead rather than the Olympian deities 
who were appeased.* In the Homeric poems no word for 
“atonement” occurs, nor are propitiatory rites mentioned as 
such. It was apparently just this absence of any tangible means 
of allaying the anger of the gods that the Dionysiac and the 
more organized Orphic mystery cult met by supplying a ritual 
of purification. Whether this ever gained a moral content it 
is difficult to say, but although ritual purity may have assumed 
an ethical character in the Eleusinia, most of the rites of 
purification had nothing to do with morality. It is true the 
Eleusinian ritual required the offering of a young pig after the 
novice had bathed in the sea,t and mention is made in an 
inscription of Andania in Messinia of the sacrifice of numerous 
animals.{ But these seem to have been connected with initia- 
tion and purification like the taurobolium. 

It was notably in Babylonia that the more definite concep- 
tions of sin and contrition developed at an early period. 
Although no formal treatise on the subject has come down to 
us from the Sumerians, the cuneiform literature reveals that 
sin was at first regarded in terms of ritual impurity which 
could be removed by materialistic means such as washing with 
pure water, or by herbs or aromatic woods. A faint echo of 
this may be heard perhaps in the words of the Hebrew 
Psalmist: ‘‘ Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash 


Pomen Anab..” Vil VIM), 4; Paus, IL, XXIV.,:1; Xen" °Hell:,” 
IV., I.5 p: 20; Paus. [X., VIIL.,. p. 1. 

+ Aristoph., ‘“‘ Frogs,” p. 338. 

¢ Sauppe, “ Die MySterieninschrift von Andania ” (Gottingen, 1860), 
pp. 261-307. Cf C. Michel, “ Recueil d’inscriptions Grecques ”’ (Brussels, 
1897), IV., No. 694, pp. 596 ff 


63 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Conversely, the follow- 
ing extract from a Sumerian bilingual penitential psalm 
might suggest that the ethical conception of sin was realized 
by the earliest inhabitants of the Euphrates Valley: 


“Oh, Lord, my wrongdoings are many, great are my 

sins 

Turn thou into good the sin which I have done. 

May the wind carry away the error which I have com- 
mitted ! 

Strip off my many evil deeds as a garment! 

My god, my sins are seven times seven; forgive my sins! 

My goddess, my sins are seven times seven; forgive my 
sins !’?* 





~ Yet actually there was no real sense of sin as an ethical con- 
cept, for the transgressions here bewailed were not moral 
faults, but ritual errors and negleét of things of which the 
worshipper may or may not be aware. “I know not the sin 
which I have done; I know not the error which I have com- 
mitted,” + cried the Sumerian penitent. It was not until a very 
much later period that a long list of sins, mostly of an ethical 
character, was recited in the expiation rituals in which it was 
declared: “My heart is distressed and my soul faileth. I cry 
unto thee, O Lord, in the pure heavens. Faithfully look upon 
me, hear my supplication.” { But in this highest development 
of Babylonian religion it sufficed for the sinner to appeal to 
the various gods to intercede for him with the god, whose 
anger he desired to appease without the former sacrificial offer- 
ing of water, bread, grain, and animals. 

From the conception of sacrifice as a gift to reanimate the 
gods, the transition is not difficult to the inward ethical sur- 
render of the soul in contrition. The worshipper offers of 


his best—the life of his flocks and herds or the firstfruits of his 


* Zimmern, “ Babylonische Busspsalmen” (Leipzig, 1885), IV., 
pp. 100-106. 

+ Op. cit., pp. 19-21, 42-45. 

ft Zimmern, “ Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Babylonischen Religion ” 
(Leipzig, 1901), pp. 23, 58 ff; L. W. King, “ Babylonian Magic and 
Sorcery” (London, 1896), No. 6, 60-62. 


4 


Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) 


crops—and in consequence he is materially the poorer. When 
the Deity was no longer thought to require nourishment, the 
blood of animals and other vitalizing substances were in a 
sense superfluous. Nevertheless, alongside of the more ethical 
offering of the broken spirit and contrite heart, the custom of 
giving outward ritual sacrificial gifts continued among practic- 
ally all the higher religions of antiquity. Even when the prac- 
tice ceased for a while, as in Zoroastrianism, and possibly 
officially in pre-exilic Israel, because it conflicted with the 
ethical chara¢ter of the prophet’s reforms,* it was soon revived 
and syStematized. 

It is often maintained to-day, however, that sacrificial wor- 
ship really has no legitimate place in an ethical religion, 
belonging as it does to a lower Stratum of cult pra¢tice. 
Rationally and ethically, God desires righteousness and loving- 
kindness from his creatures, and not the flesh of bulls and 
the blood of goats. But whatever may have been the message 
the great reformers in Israel were inspired to deliver in the 
eighth century B.c., it has been the universal experience 
of mankind in all ages that ethical monotheism satishes only 
a small minority possessed of a special kind of religious tem- 
perament. For the majority in every community something 
more intimate and concrete is necessary to hold their allegi- 
ance. Even among so enlightened a people as the Greeks, philo- 
sophical monotheism proved to be too rigid, metaphysical and 
remote for the religious needs and sentiments of the people, 
who found in the mystery cults and the worship of the lesser 
deities the satisfaction of their psychological requirements. 

Man is so constituted that his spiritual nature is restless until 
it finds rest in a god with whom personal relationships may be 
eStablished. The average person is unmoved by the philoso- 
phical notion of an “ Unmoved Mover” behind the universe, 
however lofty and ethical the concept may be, and however dis- 
tinguished is the company of its adherents, from Plato to 
Bosanquet, and Bradley and Dean Inge. Even solar mono- 
theism, which arose in Egypt in the days of Tutankhamen, 
only triumphed for a few years, while the exultation of 


* J. H. Moulton, “Early Zoroastrianism ” (London, 1913), p. 395, 


Nn. I. 


F 65 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


Marduk, the city god of Babylon and the personification of 
the sun, as head of the pantheon in the third millennium ..c. 
was equally short-lived. Among people in a primitive state of 
culture, like the aborigines of Australia, the ethical and remote 
tribal All-Father tends to degenerate into a bull-roarer or 
bogey to frighten the women* and children, because, being 
himself immortal, he has no need of revivifying sacrifices, and 
in consequence he plays no part in tribal affairs. 

But, alas! it is unnecessary to go to the ends of the earth 
or search antiquity for examples of this process, since in our 
own land we have suffered the Deity to degenerate in the eyes 
of the people into the “One Above,” while to the sophisticated 
he is often, apparently, little more than a complicated con- . 
Stellation of positive and negative eleétrons. Yet the unique 
achievement, first in Israel and later and more completely in 
Christianity, was the rescuing of the Supreme Being from isola- 
tion without sacrificing his universal sovereignty and exclusive 
claims to Godhead. As the elaborate system of poSt-exilic 
sacrificial worship and ceremonial observance in the central 
sanctuary at Jerusalem was fulfilled and re-evaluated in the 
Self-revelation of the Eternal Son, ethical ideals and objeétive 
worship found their proper place and true relationships. In 
the perfect offering on Calvary on Good Friday the sacrificial 
principle found its highest expression, just as on Christmas 
Day sacramental Self-giving reached its climax. Having 
emptied himself and made himself of no account in order 
to enter into the experience of human life, our Lord offered 
himself in complete surrender and obedience to the Will of the 
Father, pouring out sacrificially before God his life-giving 
Blood of the New Covenant. Here the inward ethical surrender 
of the will was perfectly combined with the ritual offering 
of the life of the Victim, who is none other than the Lamb of 
God. But sacrifice does not mean the death of the viétim 
only; it has to be continued and completed by the offering 
of the life, for it is this which gives significance to the rite. 
It is, in fact, this offering which is essentially the prieStly 
action. The death of Jesus on the Cross has been once and for 


* Spencer and Gillen, “Northern Tribes of Central AuStralia ” 
(London, 1904), p. 338. 
66 


Pre-Christian Sacrifice (Gentile) 


all, but the offering of it to the Father is a continuing a¢tion 
which is accomplished in the Mass. But here my task ends, 
and I must bring this rapid survey of a very big subject to a 
close lest I intrude upon territory of other papers. 

Through an avenue of many altars, with their tragic and 
sometimes barbarous rites, our Priest-Victim came. In him on 
Cross and Corporal, all those broken rays of sacrificial ritual 
meet in light. From crude conceptions of the reanimation of 
mortal gods we pass at length to the offering of the Perfect 
Life laid down in voluntary self-surrender. By the gift of his 
sacred Body with all its attributes and virtues, the perfected 
sinless Human Nature was made accessible to sin-Stained 
humanity; and through his Precious Blood incorporation be- 
came possible into the quickening Risen Life, permeating the 
ever Self-extending Organism of the Incarnate. To drink the 
blood of the Covenant was unthinkable to a Jew at the time 
when these momentous words were first spoken on Maundy 
Thursday, yet it was nothing less than this that the disciples 
were invited to drink. But however difficult the acceptance 
of this invitation may have been to the original hearers, the 
selection of this particular formula places the Eucharist in the 
very centre of the institution of sacrifice. The blood is the life, 
and to partake of it sacrificially is to assimilate the life-prin- 
ciple. Thus before the Lamb of God gave his Life on the altar 
of the Cross, he imparted his broken Body and poured out 
Blood to his disciples, and through them to us by Divine com- 
mand and prophetic anticipation. By his Self-identification 
with sin he made atonement, slaying sin in his own Body on 
the tree, and so “ passed through the veil” that separated man 
from God. Viewed thus, we see in Calvary the climax and per- 
feétion of the sacrificial principle all over the world and all 
down the ages; and to place Calvary in its rightful place in 
the history of religion is to realize that “‘ we have an altar” 
and a Holy Sacrifice. 


67 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


3 Il & 
Sacrifice in the Old Testament 
By H. L. GOUDGE 


on an Story of Old Testament sacrifice 
is the Story of a long ascent. It had 
SZ 






St. Chrysostom says, but it rose high 
secqw at last; and it is in the contrast be- 
#2 tween the beginning and the end that 
te) ly we see the reality of the divine teach- 
8, ing. Ever God Stoops to conquer us; 
Mahe takes us as we are that he may 
eee us ssh ir er aild have us be; and the Bible is the 
record of what he has borne with, as well as the record of 
what he has done. 

Now this Story of sacrifice is full, not only of interest, but 
of warning: for its Story in the Old TeStament Strangely 
anticipates its Story in the Christian Church. There is much 
from the first which is of abiding value. Most right it is that 
we should desire to give to God as well as to receive from 
him: most right also that we should desire the closest com- 
munion with him. But we see both into Israel and into the 
Church the world entering like a flood and deeply corrupting 
the use of sacrifice. Then comes the reaétion of the God- 
enlightened mind and conscience, and sacrifice seems on the 
verge of being repudiated altogether. This is, however, only 
for the time; the true line of progress lies, not in its abolition, 
but in its reformancn Both in Israel and in the Church sacri- 
fice abides. But the reaction has not been in vain; the dross 
has been largely purged away, while the gold remains. As 
Hegel would put it, there is thesis first, and then antithesis, 
and finally synthesis; and we may thank God for all three. 

68 


Sits origin from heathen grossness, as - 


‘ 
EE ee 


Sacrifice in the Old Testament 


My subject is Sacrifice in the Old Testament, and I must not 
wander far afield. But I will so tell the Story as to suggest the 
parallel; and, at the close, point out the lesson for ourselves. 


I 


But, before I turn to the Story, there are two things which 
it may be well to say. 

First, I shall assume those results of Old Testament 
criticism which are almost universally accepted by modern 
scholars. I shall, e.g., assume that the developed system of 
sacrifice which we find in Leviticus is the system of the 
second temple, and not that presupposed in the early historical 
books. The reason why Samuel and David and Elijah, when 
they sacrifice, pay no attention to the Levitical code is that it 
does not yet exist; and, when the great prophets attack the 
sacrifice of their day, it is not the later syStem which they are 
attacking. 

Secondly, I would point out that, if we ask what the 
ceremonial of sacrifice was understood to mean, we must not 
expect a very definite answer. The ceremonial is fixed and 
traditional, but the meaning is fluid and progressive. The 
law of sacrifice says “ This do,” not “‘ This think”’; and the 
path of progress lies, not only in the abolition of what is 
meaningless or degrading, but in putting a better mean- 
ing upon what is retained. The same ceremonial may be 
differently understood in one age and in another, and even 
in the same age by the more carnal mind and by the more 
spiritual. If we may not interpret differently there can be 
no common worship. Our Lord himself said “This do,” 
not “This think ”’; and still to-day, if we do what he com- 
manded in remembrance of him, we may together claim his 
blessing, though we may not all see eye to eye. 

Now consider such sacrificial action as the offering of the 
blood. What that originally meant Dr. James has told us. 
The gods, like ourselves, faint and grow weary; if “the 
twilight of the gods” is not to fall, they must be invigorated 
with food, and above all with blood, in which is the essence 
of life. Did the people of Yahweh, or Jehovah, ever so 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


conceive of sacrifice? Undoubtedly. Yahweh smells the sweet 
savour of the sacrifice of Noah; flesh, meal, wine and broth 
are offered to him as well as blood; in the Old Testament 
“the Lord’s table’ does not mean the table from which God 
feeds man, but that from which man feeds God. But that is 
only the beginning; and, though the old ceremonial lives, the 
old interpretation dies. God speaks better things to the heart 
and conscience of his people: “'Thinkest thou that I will eat 
bulls’ flesh and drink the blood of goats?” And, when his 
people have learnt their lesson, they put a new meaning upon 
what they do. The blood, in which is the life, is for Yahweh 


alone, because life is sacred to him who alone can bestow it. 


Nay, more. The life of the offerer himself may be symbolized — 


by the life of the poor beast who has been like one of his 


family, and so the offering of the blood comes to mean: 


“Take my life, and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to thee.” 


Nor is even this all. If the soul, or life, of the poor beast 
may be given for another’s weal, may not the same be true 
of the life of a nation, or of some chosen servant of God; and 
the blood thus poured out “cleanse the conscience from dead 
works to serve the living God”? If sacrifice become self-sacri- 
fice, who may set a limit to its power? So we climb slowly 
from the gods whom we mutt feed, if they are to be Strong to 
help us, to the God who desires not ours but us; the God 
who, patiens quia aeternus, accepts at first the offering of 
victims slain, that we may learn at last to give in Christ and 
through Christ the living sacrifice of ourselves, holy and 
acceptable, which he truly requires. 


II 


We will consider sacrifice first as we find it before the rise 
of the great prophets of Israel. It takes two main forms. 
First, there are burnt-offerings, wholly consumed upon the 
altar; and these, though always gifts from man to God, are 
not always bestowed with the same purpose. They may, or 


70 


Se Se SS. — o 


Sacrifice in the Old Testament 


may not, have attached to them the thought of expiation for 
sin. Secondly, there are peace-offerings, and the main pur- 
pose of these is the Communion-feast. There God receives his 
portion, and that the best; but man receives his portion also. 
It seems to be the better opinion to-day, that gift-sacrifices are 
the earlier type. But did Moses appoint these. sacrifices for 
Israel? Jeremiah says no. “I spake not unto your fathers, 
nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of 
the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices; 
but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto my 
voice.”’ What Moses was inspired to give was a new revela- 
tion of God’s charaéter and moral demands; the old sacri- 
ficial syStem of the Semites went ‘on as before. Jeremiah 
himself was a priest, and he would not have denied that 
Moses sanctioned sacrifice; what he denies is that Moses in- 
stituted it. But of this we may be sure. The sacrificial teaching 
of Moses, if he gave any, was consistent with the ethical 
religion which he taught. Sacrifice had its proper place. But, 
as prophecy declared even in its early days, “Behold! to 
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams.” 

Is this, however, the outlook which we find when Israel 
is eStablished in Canaan? It might have been, had Israel con- 
quered the whole land at once and deStroyed the Canaanite 
tribes. But the conquest was slow, and the people of God 
mingled with the old inhabitants. Soon we find ourselves in 
the Dark Ages of the Book of Judges, and the Middle Ages 
of the Books of Samuel and Kings. Strangely similar we find 
the narrative to that of the medieval chroniclers, except that 
it is so far superior as literature. And now what of sacrifice? 
Israel is no longer a people of the desert, fed by heavenly food, 
though there are those who, like the Rechabites, love the old 
desert ways. Israel looks now for its corn and wine and oil 
to the good land into which it has come; and can Yahweh, 
who has brought them in, feed and multiply them now that 
they are there? Not so, say the old inhabitants. It is their 
native gods, the local Baals, who bestow both the fruit of 
men’s bodies and the fruit of their fields. Israel must offer its 
burnt-offerings and peace-offerings at the high places, before 


71 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


the sacred obelisks and the sacred poles—yes! and take its 
part in moral abominations of which we need not think to- 
day; otherwise there will be no food and no children. But is 
not this apostasy? Well! that is not quite clear. For it is not 
a question of gods like Milcom or Chemosh, with names as 
distinctive as that of Yahweh himself. The word Baal only 
means lord or owner of the soil, as Melech, afterwards pro- 
nounced Molech in insult, only means king; and is not 
Yahweh himself lord and king? Moreover, there is little 
that is alien about the sanétuaries of Canaan; it is easy to 
adopt and to adapt them. The bones of Abraham are resting 
at Hebron; and, if you go to Bethel, you will see the holy 
obelisk on which father Jacob laid his head, and which he 
consecrated with oil to be the house of God. Why not worship 
at the old sanétuaries, round which the legends of the saints 
are gathering—Hebron and Bethel, Mizpah and Shechem and 
Gilgal—and let all go on as before? Call the local Baal 
Yahweh; or better—make Yahweh the Baal of Canaan. He, 
then, will give the corn and wine and oil. 

Now let us consider this. It is true that what matters is 
not the name by which we call our God, but our belief in his 
unity and our understanding of his character. We Christians 
are not apostates from Israel’s God, because we no longer call 
him Yahweh; while we do call him Lord, and even address 
him in one of our hymns as God of Bethel. But it is most 
dangerous to do what Israel did, and the Church both in 
East and Wet did a thousand years later, and put the new 
wine of ethical monotheism into the old bottles of unethical 
polytheism. The Baals were local Baals, and nothing could 
change their character. If Yahweh takes their place, Yahweh 
is no longer one; and the Yahweh of one place may be in 
fact, though not in theory, the rival of the Yahweh of another. 
Local cults have always that danger, as the Church has found. 
But this was not the worst. To identify Yahweh with the 
Baals was wholly to forget both his chara¢ter and his claims. 
Nature gods make no moral demands; our English nature- 
god, the “One above,” makes very few. What the Baals 
asked was sacrifices, and respect for a certain number of 
arbitrary taboos. If Baal received thousands of rams, and ten 


72 


Sacrifice in the Old Testament 


thousands of rivers of oil; if Melech received the fruit of our 
bodies for the sin of our souls, they were fully satisfied; 
whether we did justly and loved mercy was none of their 
business. To identify Yahweh with Baal and Melech was to 
lead men to think of him as they thought of Baal and Melech. 
It was to make sacrifice all-important, and morality a bagatelle. 

Now, it is this which the great prophets saw, and which 
caused that reaétion against sacrifice which is so Startling. 
Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all take sub- 
stantially the same view. “Thus saith Yahweh . . . I hate, 
I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn 
assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and 
meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard 
the peace-ofterings of your fat beasts. . . . But let judgment 
roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” 
“T desire loving-kindness, and not sacrifice; and the know- 
ledge of God more than burnt-offerings.”’ But do the prophets 
reject sacrifice itself, or only the abuses connected with it? 
That is not easy to say. Perhaps Isaiah, who loved the temple 
so well, would have been less radical than the herdman of 
Tekoa. But they draw no fine distinctions. Do let us under- 
Stand—we Anglo-Catholics especially, when we speak of the 
Reformers of the sixteenth century—that, when corruption 
has gone deep and is long-established, what is required is the 
sledge-hammer of the prophet, and not the delicate instru- 
ments of the theologian. The exact thinking, the careful dis- 
tinctions, of the theologian will be very necessary when the 
time for synthesis comes; but that time is not yet. The great 
prophets are concerned with the system as they know it, and 
with nothing else. “Come to Bethel and transgress; to Gilgal, 
and multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every 
morning, and your tithes every three days; and offer a sacri- 
fice of thanksgiving of your dough, and proclaim freewill 
offerings and publish them: for this liketh you, O ye children 
of Israel.” That is what the awakened conscience cannot 
abide—the substitution of ever-multiplied sacrifices for the 
performance of our moral obligations, the insult to God’s 
holiness involved in attempting to placate him by offerings 
for our still-continued refusal to do his will, the notion that 


73 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


sacrifice works like a charm to bring the divine blessing, while 
we fulfil none of the conditions upon which blessing depends. 
When these delusions have taken possession of men’s minds, 
there is only one thing to do with sacrifice; and that is for the 
time to abolish it. That was the course which God for a time 
took; a people such as Israel had come to be was of no use 
for his purpose. Northern Israel proved hopeless, and it was 
swept away. Southern Israel was not hopeless. There the 
prophets made a real impression, and a real religious reforma- 
tion took place. Ruthless as Josiah was, we can understand his 
action. The destruction of the old shrines, and the concentra- 
tion of worship at Jerusalem did mean a return to one 


Yahweh, and only one, which could probably have been © 


effected in no other way; and a moral reformation was 
attempted at the same time. But there was almost immediate 
relapse, and Jerusalem, too, had at last to fall, and its people 
to be carried captive to Babylon. There they were in an un- 
clean land, where they could not sacrifice. There those who 
retained their faith had to come Starkly face to face with God 
and his moral demands. 

And now we turn to the time after the exile. The rain has 
descended, and the floods have come. It is but a tiny remnant 
that has returned, and what will its life be? Is sacrifice to 
have no place now? So some think that it should have been. 
The prophet and the priest, they think, must be ever at feud; 
up with the prophet, and down with the priest! But no such 
view is to be found in the Bible. Often in the heroes of the 
Bible Story prophet and priest are one. Abraham is both, 
Moses is both, Samuel is both, Elijah is both, Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel are both, and Christ our Lord is both. There is a false 
and degraded priesthood which the prophets denounce, but 


there is also a false and degraded prophecy; and if we ask - 


which is denounced the more fiercely, the answer is that it is 


false prophecy that is generally the basis of false priesthood, | 


and the blows fall more heavily upon the former. “ A wonder- 
ful and horrible thing is come to pass in the land; the prophets 
prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and 
my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end 
thereof ?”’ Now it is the glory of Israel’s reformation that in 


74 


Sacrifice in the Old Testament 


it pepe! and priest worked hand in hand. It was so even 
before the great disaster; behind Josiah’s aétion there is both 
Hilkiah the priest and Huldah the prophetess. It is so in that 
noble book Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is all for sacrifice, but 
all, too, for righteousness and the circumcised heart; Israel’s 
worship is just one element in Israel’s consecrated life; the 
State is a religious State, and the worship is a moral worship. 
It is so after the exile in Haggai and Zechariah. Their teach- 
ing is as profoundly ethical as that of the earlier prophets; but 
to them the first task is the rebuilding of the temple, and the 
restoration of Israel’s worship, and they believe that the fulfil- 
ment of God’s purpose depends upon this. But it is so perhaps 
above all in that great prophet, Ezekiel, whom we so neglect, 
but to whom Israel’s reformation perhaps owed more than to 
anyone else. Ezekiel was, like Jeremiah, a priest; but he had 
the prieStly outlook as Jeremiah had not. His ideal for the 
Church of God was not only that of a holy people, but that 
of a worshipping people; witness must be borne by the 
Church to God, not only by a corporate life of justice and 
mercy, but by a noble worship and a disciplined religious 
life. So to Ezekiel what seem but the details of worship are 
full of interest and importance; and he sets himself to devise 
a new system of fast and festival and sacrifice for the restored 
people of God. Right worship is no substitute for right con- 
duct, but it is a part of right conduct, part of that duty to- 
wards God, the neglect of which is sure, in the long run, to 
mean the neglect of duty towards our neighbour also. Ezekiel 
did not altogether get his way; new Prayer-Books have a 
Stormy course. But the worship of the second temple owed 
a great debt to Ezekiel; and it is with a few words about it 
that I will close my survey. 

We observe first that, though the second temple has an 
elaborate system of sacrifice, the old evils have received a mortal 
blow. Old degrading rites and superstitions for a time live on, 
as the latest chapters of the Book of Isaiah show. But the 
work of Josiah as a whole stands. Apart from the Samaritans, 
there is in the Holy Land no sacrifice to Yahweh except at 
Jerusalem, and so no possibility of rival Yahwehs. Moreover, 
all is carefully regulated, as it is believed, by the divine com- 


75 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


mand; all is to be done thus, and not otherwise, at the 
appointed place and the appointed time; Israel can no 
longer multiply its sacrifices at its own will. Thus sacrifice is 
made to emphasize the importance of exaét obedience instead 
of substituting something else for it, and an obedient people 
in this Israel remained. Our Lord blames the Jews for many 
things; but never for the charaéter of their worship, or for too 
great attention to it in comparison with other things. If he 
quotes Hosea’s watchword, “loving-kindness and not sacri- 
fice,” he is thinking of the Sabbath, and not of worship. 


Moreover, the priest has now to be a teaching priest. See what 


Malachi says about that: there are few better subjects than | 


his book for a priest’s retreat. Malachi insists as fully as we 
could desire that all that belongs to the worship of God must 
be the best that we can offer, and that the laity must pay their 
tithes. But he has no use for priests that offer sacrifice, but do 
not teach or evangelize their people. The priest is the messenger 
of the Lord of Hosts to turn many from iniquity; his lips 
must keep knowledge; men must seek inStru¢tion from his 
mouth; and if he negleéts the work that really costs him 
labour and pain, God will make him “ base and contemptible 
before all the people,” and throw his sacrifice back in his face. 

Secondly, the reformed system, so far from deadening, 
deepens the sense of sin. In it—apparently for the first time 
—we find the sin-offering and trespass-offering distinguished 
from the burnt-offering, and given a place of their own. The 
great Day of Atonement seems to be new, though old elements 
may be found among its ceremonies. But let us observe this. 
The ordinary sin-offerings can only be offered for the most 
venial sins; for sins done with a high hand they provide no 
atonement. With the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement that 
is not so clear. It was offered primarily for the nation as a 
whole to remove the corporate guilt which Stained it in the 
eyes of God. The individual might, no doubt, share in it; but 
he was never—so taught the Rabbis—to presume upon it; or 
to suppose that, if he had sinned against his brother, the Day 
of Atonement would help him unless he made amends. What 
could be better than all this? The very fact that sacrifice was 
necessary, even for involuntary sin, emphasized the divine 


76 


— — 


ee ee ee ee eee 


eres 


Sacrifice in the Old Testament 
holiness, while the fact that it could be offered for that alone 


did so even more. If the law did not overcome sin, it kept it 
in continual remembrance; and so was our schoolmaster to 
bring us to Christ, who alone can deliver us from it. 


III 


We see, then, the history; and “these things,” St. Paul says, 
“happened by way of example, and were written for our 
admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” Did 
the Catholic Church understand the story? Very little, I fear; 
it was not then possible that she should; and because she 
understood it so little, it has been in part repeated in her 
own history. The Church had from the first her own profound 
doétrine of Sacrifice, though like other doétrines it was but 
slowly thought out and formulated. But, when she received 
the heathen multitudes into her fellowship without real con- 
version, what was likely to become of it? The Church did 
what Israel did. Everywhere she found “‘ gods many and lords 
many ”’; and she changed their names, without always greatly 
changing the character of the devotion offered to them. The 
change of names was easy. A saint may be as popular as a 
god if we offer him the same petitions and keep his festival 
in the old way. If Holy Church prefers St. Dionysius to 
Dionysus and St. Elias to Helios, we are ready to oblige her; 
and the Virgin Mother of the Lord will more than fill the 
place of the virgin goddesses and mother goddesses of our 
earlier devotion. At any rate there will be a blessed change in 
our local legends. But we are many, and our teachers are 
few; what will be our thoughts of sacrifice? Holy Church 
says that we must not offer animal sacrifices to the saints, and 
after a while we give up doing so, and are satisfied with the 
sacrifice of the Mass, offered to God alone. But how shall we 
think of it? Shall we always understand that our Christian 
sacrifice is one, and only one; that the Lord died for us once 
for all; and that, though his one offering abides, and he “is,” 
and not merely once was, “ the propitiation for our sins,” and 
as such is present with us in our highest act of worship, there 
is no new sacrifice, or repetition of what he did long ago. No 

77 


Sacrifice Outside Christianity 


doubt that is what our wisest teachers say, but it is not what 
we half-Christians think. Sacrifice we had before we were 
Christians, and we think of it much as we have always thought 
of it. Sacrifice, we suppose, is an act that we have performed 
for us by the priest; and it works its effect without further 
trouble to ourselves. Each aét of sacrifice Stands by itself, and 
has a power of its own, though that power may not be great. 
Thus the more acts the better. When Solomon offered two 
and twenty thousand oxen it had two and twenty thou- 
sand times as much effect as it would have had if he had 
offered one. And, of course, we can offer for mortal sins as 
for others, though in this case the sacrifices must be more 
numerous. That was the popular belief about sacrifice in the © 
Dark Ages and in the Middle Ages, as it had been long ago in 
Israel; the chief difference was that, since Christians believed 
in a future life, sacrifices were offered for the dead as well as 
the living. The moral result was as deplorable in the second 
case as it was in the first; and the moral rea¢tion, when at last 
it came, was even more violent. It is quite true that the teach- 
ing of the theologians in no way justified the popular belief. 
But the Church allowed the practice to which this belief led, 
profited by it, and at last attempted to justify it; and it was 
the popular pra¢tice with which the Reformers had to deal. 
If our task to-day is synthesis, if we like Haggai and Zechariah 
have to restore much that has been mistakenly destroyed, we 
must not forget our debt to the Reformers, and above all we 
must see that we restore the right things. If we are to win 
our Protestant brothers we must make two things absolutely 
clear. First, the Holy Sacrifice is essentially one. We multiply 
our celebrations, as Christians of the East do not, because 
we have taught our people the blessing of frequent Com- 
munion, as they have not. It would no doubt be better, if it 
were possible, to plead the One Sacrifice, and to feed upon it, 
together. We do not believe that each Mass is a separate sacri- 
fice, with an individual power of its own. Secondly, the Holy 
Sacrifice is a “‘ reasonable service,” which requires the activity 
of the mind and of the will. It cannot be pleaded for us, un- 
less it is pleaded by us; and it cannot be pleaded by us with 
acceptance before our Father, unless it is the expression of 


78 





Sacrifice in the Old Testament 


our own worship, our own penitence, our own thanksgiving, 
our own desire to do his will, and to forward his purpose for 
the world. I myself was brought up among the Evangelicals; 
I know them, and I dearly love them Still. I am sure that the 
best Catholics and the best Evangelicals are here far nearer 
one to another than either of them understand; it is words 
that divide us far more than our real convictions. 





79 


The Christian Sacrifice 


ec 1 & 
The Sacrifice of Calvary 


By K. E. KIRK 
I 


E are asked to consider this evening the 
Sacrifice of Calvary—or (as we ma 
by 52) the sacrificial aspect of the Re- 
deemer’s death and life—for all, I sup- 
pose, are agreed that life and death 
may not be separated in this great issue. 
And at once the question meets us: 
OK | Oy Sp, “What do you mean by ‘sacrifice’?” 
Oo vaeg Indeed, it is hard to say what we mean 
hie it; for the word has become all too vulgarized. Many of 
us make what we call “ great personal sacrifices” whereby no 
one Stands to gain but ourselves; and the “sacrifices” of the 
bargain sale catalogue are a mere conventionality of advertise- 
ment. Let us say, then, that by a sacrifice we mean, firstly, 
an expenditure of some real magnitude; and, secondly, an 
expenditure offered by the spender to another. Sacrifice is a 
surrender, an offering, a gift, small (often enough) in absolute 
value, but precious even so in significance. It is sometimes said, 
indeed, that for a valid sacrifice that which is offered must in the 
offering be destroyed. But all destrudction brings with it new 
creation, and no offering can be without expense to the offerer. 
We keep a more open mind if we say, with weighty authorities, 
that the transference of the gift to a new possessor, or its con- 
version to a new use and power, is that which lies at the root 


80 





} 


; 
<4 
: 





On Calvary 


of this idea of “ destruction.’’ Not the death of the victim, 
but the offering of its life, is that which matters.* 

Two things at least, therefore, are involved in a sacrifice— 
expense to the offerer and value to the recipient. That 
could be no true sacrifice which cost the offerer nothing at all 
—not even a moment’s thought or care. Nor could we call 
by the name a gift which could have no conceivable value 
to the recipient—not even in the giver’s mind. Once religion 
has grasped the truth that the Almighty does not eat bull’s 
flesh, nor drink the blood of goats, to offer these any longer is 
sacrilege and not sacrifice. At least, in the worshipper’s honest 
opinion, his sacrifice must mean something to its receiver— 
must have some dimly intelligible purpose. A surrender which 
cannot in any conceivable circumstances elicit a response from 
its recipient is the equivalent of something which he never 
receives—it is no gift to Aim. And so if our first question as 
to sacrifice must concern the offerer’s expense, the second must 
equally concern the recipient’s supposed need thereof; and 
that sacrifice becomes rational or appropriate in which the ex- 
pense is commensurate with the need, and the need with the 
expense. Nay, more, if the need is real and pressing, and no 
other expenditure can meet it, then the expenditure of which 
we are thinking is not merely appropriate, but necessary and 
indispensable for the setting right of wrongs. 


II 


The death of Christ, like many another martyrdom, is a 
terrible and moving thing. That does not make it a sacrifice. 
To see it in its sacrificial aspeét it is not enough that we should 
be moved to tears or horror, nor that we should take it simply 
as a symbol of the cruelty of men or the tragic element in 
human life. To see it as a sacrifice we must Steadily contem- 
plate it in those two aspects of which I have already spoken— 
the aspect of a gift which costs the offerer much, and the aspect 
of a gift which satisfies a need. 


* On this point see, e.g., W. Spens in “ Essays Catholic and Critical,” 
P453- 
G 81 


The Christian Sacrifice 


That it was a gift—a royal gift—admits no question, A 
gift must be something freely given. A transa¢tion of contract 
or bargain, a tax we are constrained to pay—these are no 

ifts. The Bible rightly emphasizes this element in our Lord’s 
death; St. Paul rightly speaks of it as the “ free gift.” In this 
sacrifice Christ is not victim alone—for the victim has no 
choice in a sacrifice. It was not Isaac who offered himself upon 
the altar, but Abraham who offered him. Christ is not victim 
alone, but priest as well; and whatever other meaning that 
great phrase may have, at least it means that Christ gave him- 
self freely to die for us. The gift began when, though he 
was rich, he became poor for our sakes; when being in the 
form of God he thought it no prize to be equal with God, 
but humbled himself. Further gifts were added when in the 
desert, of his own free will, he chose the hardest and not the 
easiest way of Messiahship; added again in his free giving of 
himself in teaching, training, healing. At every turn of the 
Gospel Story we see the same portent—the picture of one who 
gives freely, unsparingly, of his best. It is the climax of that 
generosity without beginning and without end which char- 
acterizes a God who has given to each of us life and health and 
joy and comradeship and vocation; a God of whom itis rightly 
said that before we call he will answer, and while we are 
yet speaking he will hear. The “ gifts of God are without 
repentance,” says the old English text—there is in them no 
afterthought—no arriére pensée, no element of paying for 
services rendered or demanded. 

All the more significant is this freeness of the gift of Christ 
when we consider the cost to him who made it. Here it is 
wrong to centre our thoughts too narrowly on Calvary. It is 
true that the manner of a death, when placed in contrast to 
the life of which it is the close, will often achieve a significance | 
which no moment in that life, nor the whole life itself, could 
have in isolation. Death makes patent, sometimes, virtues or 
vices which were only latent in life. Treason loses some of 
its blackness if it can be said of the traitor that “ nothing in 
his life became him like the leaving it”; and a hero can “‘ mar 
the perfect picture of a life by one black smutch at closing.” 
We are right in isolating the death and cross of Christ some- 


82 


On Calvary 


times, and seeing in them an all-important and self-contained 
moment of the highest significance. But Calvary is not the 
whole story; we must look back in the record to Gethsemane and 
Jerusalem, to Galilee, Nazareth, and Bethlehem. At all those 
times and in all those places there was a crucifixion; a crucifixion 
in Gethsemane, when the agony closed round the Saviour; 
a crucifixion in Jerusalem, when the Chosen People rejected the 
Lord’s Anointed; a crucifixion in Galilee, when Pharisees 
cavilled, and crowds jostled and ebbed and flowed, and dis- 
ciples misunderstood. Above all, perhaps there was a cruci- 
fixion at Bethlehem and Nazareth, when the Son of God chose 
to be confined within the pitiful limitations of human ignor- 
ance and frailty, and to labour in the narrow surroundings of 
an upland hamlet. We have spoken once of the Temptation; 
let us think of it again. That the divine should submit to 
such humiliation as to make temptation—human temptation 
—possible; should be so conditioned as to suffer the impulse 
to be untrue to its own nature—is there not crucifixion there? 
By his holy Nativity and Circumcision; by his Baptism, Fast- 
ing and Temptation; by his Agony and Bloody Sweat—by all 
these, as by his Cross and Passion, Christ wrought out his 
sacrifice in its fulness. On Calvary all these crucifixions came 
to their focus and culmination; the spendthrift life of royal 
giving found its apparent issue in hopeless bankruptcy. Who 
can count the cost of the Incarnate Life and Death of Christ 
to the Godhead? 

For let us not forget that in the sacrifice of Christ the 
whole Godhead is involved. I do not wish to touch upon the 
mystery of the Holy Trinity or the problem of the suffering 
of God; but we are not going beyond the language of Scrip- 
ture if we remind ourselves that God so loved the world as 
to give his only-begotten Son, and that such a giving cannot 
be other than a sacrifice. Surely, too, the Spirit which groans 
and makes intercession with our feeble spirit must have 
groaned and interceded with Jesus? Nothing was held back 
that could be given when God gave himself for man; the 
sacrifice was as complete, as costly, as excruciating as God— 
and only God—could make it. 


83 


The Christian Sacrifice 


Ill 


So much, then, of the cost of our sacrifice to its offerer. 
What of the recipient’s need? But, first, who is the recipient? 
There is a sense—a very real sense—a sense which could not 
be more real—in which man’s need was satisfied by the life 
and death of Christ. Each one of us knows that only too well 
— it is the soul of Christian joyfulness—it is that to which we 
are met to testify. Let us try for a moment to throw off the 
fetters of conventional language, and realize once more what 
all true evangelicalism means by the “sense of sin.” Let us 
recall the meannesses, the emptinesses, the selfishnesses, the 
unkindnesses of to-day and yesterday, of this morning and 
afternoon—nay, of half an hour or even five minutes ago. 
Let us think of them not as a vague and generalized deviation 
from the ideal, which we pigeon-hole as “‘ rather sinful,’’ which 
causes us a transient uneasiness for the moment, but which 
we readily forget. Let them rather appear as an endless series 
Stretching back into the mists of our earliest years—each one 
of them a fall as terrible and dishonourable as Adam’s or 
David’s or St. Peter’s—each one of them an aét as hostile to our 
Father in Heaven as St. Paul’s persecution of the Church of 
God. Let us set side by side with them the half-hearted, inter- 
mittent, and never wholly disinterested reactions which we 
dignify by the names of “Struggles for righteousness” or 
“service of God.” So viewing our lives as a whole, can we 
dare to say that a single moment goes by in which our own 
efforts to lead Christian lives are sufficient—in which we do 
not need the life and death of Christ? At the very least we 
need them as an example and inspiration, and gladly profess 
ourselves of those who at the inStance of St. Peter and St. 
Paul set themselves to a life of the Imitation of Christ. Still 
more—if, as we believe, the power of the Holy Spirit co-oper- 
ates with men to dwell in them as the Spirit that dwelt in Jesus 
—does the triumphant life of obedience lived by Jesus, even to 
the death, satisfy a human need, giving not merely the example 
of great humility and patience, but also power to be partakers 
of his resurrection and to live henceforth in newness of life? 


84 


On Calvary 


Here is something, happily, in which Christians of every 
persuasion are agreed. In other matters they may be as widely 
separated as the poles, in this they are united. Christ’s death, 
with the life of which it was at once the summary and the 
climax, opened to all men the possibility of newness of life 
which shri would have been unattainable. It satisfied 
man’s deepest need, it was a gift of priceless value. Do we say, 
then, that man is the recipient of Christ’s sacrifice—that it was 
offered to him? Not for a moment would any Christian dare 
to say so. The name “sacrifice”’ is appropriate only where the 
receiver is worthy of the offering; and we are wholly unworthy 
that Christ should do anything for us. If there is any justifica- 
tion in using the word “sacrifice” of Calvary at all—if it is 
to mean to us anything more, in this connection, than just 
coStliness of effort—then it must be God to whom the sacri- 
fice was offered. And when this is said we are face to face 
with one of the greatest problems and mysteries of Chris- 
tianity. I know no better way of exploring it than by asking 
two simple questions. The first is, Why did God need a sacri- 
fice? The second, How does Christ's death upon the cross 
satisfy that need? 


IV 
Why did God need a sacrifice? The world is not as it should 


be; and the main reason why it is not is to be found in human 
sin. No soul is what God would have it to be, no soul as 
innocent as he created it; and the reason lies in the fact that 
every soul has sinned. Here, then, is a need of God; a need 
for a sinless world and sinless souls) Had God never created 
the Universe, it could not be said that he needed one; having 
created it, it must be true of him that he needs—desires—its 
perfection; and sin is that obstacle to its perfection for which 
man is responsible. If there is to be a race of men at all, we 
cannot say other than that God needs and desires that they 
should be sinless. 

“But surely,” it may be said, “once a man repents of his 
sin, puts it away and turns to God, the need is done away with 
—God has forgiven the sin, it is blotted out, abolished, for- 
gotten; penitence has satisfied God’s need. Penitence is the 


85 


The Christian Sacrifice 


sacrifice that God requires—‘ Meat-offering and drink-offering 
thou wouldest not; then said I, lo, I come.’”’ We cannot praise 
too highly the virtue of Christian penitence. In the sculptures 
of the great Abbey Church of Vézélay in Burgundy it is the 
repentant Magdalen who Stands at heaven’s gate with St. Peter 
to welcome in the elect. The greater joy in heaven is the joy 
over the sinner that repents; the fullest picture of divine for- 
giveness in our Lord’s teaching is in the parable of the Prodigal 
Son. But true as this most certainly is, it is not the whole 
truth. Twelve years ago a great patriot sent as her dying mes- 
sage to her fellow-countrymen the words “Patriotism is not 
enough.” It is no mere parody of that ringing epigram to say _ 
that great penitents throughout the ages have recorded for their 
fellow-Christians the conviction, “‘ Penitence is not enough.” 
Here is a truth to which Christianity is fully and absolutely 
committed. Penitence is not enough :— 


“Could my zeal no respite know, 
Could my tears for ever flow, 
All for sin could not atone; 
Thou must save, and thou alone.” 


We must dwell a little longer upon this cardinal conviétion 
of our faith that penitence is not enough to satisfy God’s need. 
In the economy of salvation, sin must be cancelled out. On the 
side of evil, on the debit side, sin is a positive faét; but on the 
side of righteousness, the credit side, penitence is no more than 
an aspiration, a possibility. It is not itself the new life of 
righteousness; it is only the first Step—the turning to God, the 
renouncing of the past—which makes the new life possible. 
And possibilities do not cancel facts; they only hold out the 
hope that the faéts may be cancelled. The possibility of refresh- 
ment does not cancel the fact of hunger; the possibility of 
relief does not cancel the fact of pain. So, I think, it must 
be with penitence and sin; penitence removes a barrier to the 
cancelling of sin, but sin itself is not cancelled by penitence 
alone. 

But, further, even if by a miracle of grace any one of us 
were able truthfully to say “ Now I sin no more,” he still 


On Calvary 


would have to add: “But I have been a sinner.” And what 
we have been leaves some trace or stain which the mere be- 
coming something else cannot wholly remove. This is the most 
difficult point in all our subject, and I know no way of express- 
ing it except by pictures. One such picture comes to my mind; 
that of a child—it is a well-known piece of fiétion—who 
through the fault of others rather than of himself had fallen 
into every kind of childish deceit and evasion. Won back to 
better things by the patience of a mother’s love, he gives way 
once more to a piece of naughtiness, saying in self-excuse : “ It’s 
all different now.” “ Not altogether different,” is the author’s 
comment, “for when young lips have drunk deep of the 
bitter waters of hate, suspicion, and despair, all the love in the 
world will not wholly take away that knowledge.” That was 
written of human love, and of divine love, in the end, I 
believe it is not true; but the Story has enough truth for our 
purposes. God builds a beautiful temple when he creates a 
human soul; he writes a beautiful story when he plots a human 
life. But you and I by sin have desecrated the temple and spoilt 
the Story in the telling; a new life—a converted life—may 
repair the damage (make reparation, as we say); it cannot 
efface it. ‘‘ All for sin could not atone’; if God’s need is to 
be satisfied, it will be satisfied only by other efforts than yours 
and mine. 

The life history of the best and saintliest of us is written in 
the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son comes home 
from his disastrous journey. He is penitent; he is forgiven; and 
the Story fades away into the joy and feasting of its close. But 
are things, after all, exactly as they were before? No; for the 
substance wasted in riotous living has not been restored. 
Supplement the story by some of our Lord’s outspoken words 
about the loss that our lives cause to God—the saying that, 
even when we have done all that is commanded, we are unpro- 
fitable servants—we do not earn our keep; the parable of the 
slave who owed his master ten thousand talents—and it is 
easy to see that the son could never restore the possessions he 
had wasted. Should we, then, applaud him if he said: “I have 
repented, I have been forgiven; my father needs nothing more; 
all has been repaired”? Should we not rather say: “The loss 


87 


The Christian Sacrifice 


remains; and until it is repaired there is Still something which 


the father lacks’’? 
V 


So we come to our second question: Does the sacrifice of 
Christ satisfy God’s need, and, if so, how? Dismiss at once 
all thought of those old answers which have shocked the 
moral sense and alienated men from the Gospel; they were 
attempts to State the truth which may have helped for a 
moment, but thereafter missed their mark. Christ’s death does 
not satisfy God’s need, because more punishment had to be 
meted out, more suffering endured, more wrath appeased— _ 
metaphors like these border upon the blasphemous. They re- 
present God as a tyrant, raging till someone has been tortured 
—it matters not who; as a pedantic magistrate—a veritable 
Justice Shallow among gods—-so tied to his routine that, rather 
than remit a fine he has imposed, he will pay it himself. These 
are not Christian conceptions. Revert once more to the figures 
we have chosen. The temple which God built, the story he 
planned, were marred and made impossible by sin; and in the 
temple and the Story are signified the sinless human life lived, 
not by automatons, but by self-conscious free-willed men. Some- 
thing of infinite value to God was defiled, beyond all cleansing 
by human effort; men whom he had made upright sought out, 
and degraded themselves with, the many inventions of sin. 
Only one thing could restore to God’s sight the vision thus 
cloaked in darkness. That one thing was a Perfect and Sinless 
human life; and such a life was lived to its culmination in the 
obedience of the Cross by our Redeemer. He built a new 
Temple, more perfect than the first, which no hodtile effort 
could destroy: he made a new story—a Story which we Still 
call the good news of Jesus Christ. If by no other figure, 
then perhaps by this we may perceive, as in a glass, darkly 
something of the way in which Christ’s life and death satisfied 
God’s need, and so became the perfect sacrifice for sin. 

Think, then, of the Cross—and therewith of all that the 
Cross typifies in the life and death of Jesus—held up, as the 
words of the Gospel hint, like the brazen serpent between man 
and God. It is held up in man’s sight to give him an inspiration 


On Calvary 


to newness of life, and an assurance of grace to co-operate in 
its achievement. It is held up before God as restoring to him 
that which human sin deStroyed—the perfeét Pattern and 
Realization of all that he meant man’s life to be. It is a gift 
given by God-in-man for man to God-in-God; a sacrifice, if 
we may say so, by God to himself at his own charges. Is it 
not true, after all, that he himself needed such a sacrifice of 
himself if his work was to be complete? Is it not equally true 
that this sacrifice satisfied his need as no other could? Is there 
blasphemy or folly or immorality in the dodétrine of the Cross 
if we look at it in some such way as this? Does it surrender 
anything that the Christian Church holds dear? I cannot 
answer these questions; I have only tried to put before you 
what seems to me to be the truth of the Gospel in a manner 
free from offence; free also from that refining and minimizing 
of Christian truth which is so easy and unprofitable a method 
of meeting the challenge of our times. I leave it with you as 
a suggestion, but a suggestion only; a metaphor which you may 
discard or build upon according as it seems to you, in its 
measure, to point to falsehood or to truth. 

The seer of the Apocalypse saw the New Jerusalem, the 
heavenly city, coming down from heaven to take the place of 
the old guilt-ridden city which had added sin to sin until it 
crucified the Lord. The Christian Church has seen the Son 
of God descend from heaven as Son of Man, to replace on 
earth that travesty of manhood which is all that sin has left of 
true humanity. All the conditions of a sacrifice for sin are here 
complete. It is needed; it is costly; it—and it alone—cancels 
the offence of sin. We look to a Redeemer, crucified in death, 
but crucified in life as well, by reason of his sinlessness in the 
midst of a sinful world; and we know that the offence of the 
past has been blotted out by God in his own sight; that his 
eyes see—as do ours also—nothing but the perfect Realization 
of the Man. For our own sins we must Still repine; for the loss 
they caused to God we need repine no more; for that loss has 
been made good by Another. The wrong of the past has been 
righted; and we may turn to the future with grateful hearts, 
resolved by God’s grace not to repeat the wrong. 


89 


The Christian Sacrifice 


Il & 


The Christian Sacrifice in the 
Eucharist 


By E. G. SELWYN 






ie provides the necessary ground and 
2 foundation for any exposition of the 
séca.o Sacrifice in the Eucharist. In a defini- 
f< tion which has been accepted as 
Zp classical in Christian thought, St. 


2, Augustine laid it down that visible 








Baa _ESSS 
RS SES mS Wee wec the is the symbol of a sacrifice 


invisible, ae derives its significance in the first place from the 
interior intentions and dispositions of the heart of the offerer. 
In our Lord’s case, what we have to do with is a life which 
was at every point, and not only in death, sacrificial. There 
was no moment in his Incarnate Life in which he was “not 
offering to the Father, as the great High Priest of mankind, 
the sacrifice of adoration and obedience, of expiatory suffer- 
ings, of redeeming charity, of steadfast patience, of victorious 
joy—of all, in fact, that man owes of love to God and to his 
fellow-men. And I want to emphasize that faét of our Lord’s 
Person and Work before going further; for both the Cross and 
the Eucharist alike only have sacrificial meaning because they 
have to do with him who was—in the Baptist’s words—“ the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” It is 
his offering to the Father in human life of all that i is due from 
man to God, both for God’s glory and for man’s redemption 
from sin andl guilt, that underlies both the Eucharist and the 
Cross. 

And yet we need to make a distinction. There are different 


go 


My f) subject of the Sacrifice on cee | 


2 a ali at ae Ss 2 da 
PN a a Te eee ee en 


In the Eucharist 


moments in our Lord’s sacrificial activity, even while on earth 
—different modes in which it is realized. We feel, and all the 
Evangelists alike confirm us in feeling, that our Lord’s Passion 
and Death are in some sense sui generis—not simply the 
natural climax of his life of sacrifice, but the accomplishment 
of that self-offering in a distin¢tive setting and to distinctive 
ends. He is to offer himself now not in the sufferings of 
homelessness, of disappointment, of infinite sympathy with 
men; but in the special experiences of bodily torment and 
spiritual dereli¢tion and forsakenness which make up the 
misery of death. And he does that in expiation of sin; for the 
guilt of the world was laid on him. In the Story of the Passion 
we see our Lord voluntarily offering himself as a sacrifice for 
sin; and it was what he then made it that has determined its 
meaning for the world ever since. When we look upon the 
crucifix, we do not frame such words as “‘ murder,” or even 
“martyrdom,” though both would be just; only one word is 
felt to express its full meaning, and it is the word “ sacrifice.” 

But what do we mean by sacrifice? Let me give you an 
illustration from an obscure corner of history. About a century 
ago, the Island of Formosa, now a colony of the Japanese 
Empire, was governed by the Chinese. The natives, who were 
and are a very primitive people, suffered grievously from their 
rule, which was harsh and cruel; but there were exceptions. 
One such was a Chinaman, named Goho, who was so success- 
ful in handling the natives that he was appointed governor 
of the island. When he entered upon his task, the natives had 
been accustomed from time immemorial to offer once a year 
a human sacrifice; and previous governors had been used to 
humour their scruples by providing them with some condemned 
criminal as a victim. Goho could not bring himself to tolerate 
this custom, and he persuaded them to accept instead a pig or 
a goat for the sacrifice. Year after year, for forty years, this 
device succeeded; but at last the nation could brook it no 
longer. They came and told him that they must have now a 
human viétim and none other, and that if Goho would not 
himself provide them with a human victim, they would them- 
selves lay hold on a Chinaman for the purpose. The governor 
realized that he could prevail no longer, and that they could 


gI 


The Christian Sacrifice 


not be put off. And he gave his orders accordingly. “Go,” he 
said, “‘to the forest to-morrow morning at nine o’clock, and 
at such and such a place you will find a man tied up, wearing 
a red robe and a red hat, and a scarlet cloth over his face. 
Strike; for he is your victim.” Next morning the natives did 
as he bade them; and when they saw the man tied up, 
apparelled sacrificially as he had said, the blood-lust came upon 
them and they rushed upon their viétim. In a few moments 
all was over. Then, as the scarlet cloth fell aside, they saw the 
face; and it was the face of Goho. So Goho prevailed. It is 
said that from that day to this no human sacrifice has ever 
been offered in the Island of Formosa; instead the natives . 
gather every year to celebrate with solemn thanksgiving the 
anniversary of his death. 

Now there are three features, I think, in that Story which 
make it instructive as an example of sacrifice. There is first 
the faét—which is not found in any merely ceremonial sacri- 
fices, such as those of the Jewish law—that priest and victim 
are one and the same; it is ethically the highest kind of sacri- 
fice—viz., self-sacrifice. Secondly, you will note that, though 
the whole sacrifice is centred in a death, and a death which 
did literally expiate for sin, it was not those who did the kill- 
ing who offered the sacrifice; it was Goho who offered it. 
And, thirdly, he offered it not simply by being killed, but by 
giving to his death, by his own words and aéts—by the apparel 
he wore and by the command given previously to “ Strike, for 
he is your victim ”—a sacrificial significance. 

Let me apply this analogy to the far greater sacrifice which 
we are considering here. Of Christ as himself both Priest and 
Victim I have already spoken. It is a truth which lies latent 
beneath the Gospel Story, only to be fully worked out in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. That Epistle represents our ascended 
Lord as our great High Priest for ever offering, pleading, pre- 
senting in heaven his own sacrifice of himself for man’s sin. 
Just as the Jewish high priest on the Day of Atonement entered 
into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the viétim slain 
outside and sprinkled this blood on and before the mercy-seat, 
in token of the reconciliation of Israel with God, so now 
Jesus has entered within the veil, not with the blood of a 


g2 


In the Eucharist 


bullock in his hand, but with his own blood, which is the 
price of the world’s forgiveness. It is a notable fact that the 
Epistle which, more than any other book of the New Testa- 
ment, emphasizes the all-sufficiency and once-for-all-ness of our 
Lord’s oblation on the cross, should also have as its principal 
theme the continued pleading of this oblation in the timeless 
world of heaven. Yet the two truths correspond. So far as 
history and this world of successiveness are concerned, our 
Lord’s oblation of himself was consummated on the cross and 
cannot be repeated. But this unique oblation has also its time- 
less aspect, corresponding to the “indissoluble” and eternal 
life of him who offered it as Man, and as Man is for ever 
both the Priest and the Lamb; and it is that truth which we 
try to express when we speak of the eternal offering in heaven. 

I pass, secondly, to the death on the cross. Examination of 
the Jewish sacrifices, or of pagan sacrifices either, does not 
allow us to say that a victim’s death was always involved in a 
sacrifice. Gift or offering being the fundamental element in 
sacrifice, this sometimes took the form of corn or wine or 
some other staple food. But so far as expiatory sacrifices were 
concerned, it was otherwise; then a living victim, and that 
victim’s death, were necessary; and it is significant that it is only 
these sacrifices which are alluded to by the writers of the New 
Testament when they seek for analogies to the death of our 
Lord. Yet here, too, as in the case I quoted from Formosa, 
note that the death is not made to be a sacrifice simply in and 
through the act of killing. That Jewish crowd, those soldiers, 
Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate—what those men did who put our 
Lord to death was not to sacrifice him, or to offer a sacrifice 
at all. What they did was to commit a judicial murder. It 
was he and he alone, carrying through the oblation of him- 
self which he had made by word and deed at the institution 
of the Eucharist, who offered the sacrifice that day. 

But there is yet a third point, and for our present subject 
it is the most important. You will remember the red robe and 
hat which Goho wore, and the words which he spoke on the 
night before his death—“ Strike, for he is your viétim.”’ These 
words, these robes of ceremony, correspond to a feature which 
is common to all sacrifice, not least to those sacrifices of the 


93 


The Christian Sacrifice 


Covenant, of the Passover, and of the Day of Atonement which 
are most used in Scripture to illustrate the Christian Sacrifice. 
This feature consists in certain ‘‘ sacerdotal aéts”’ or ‘‘ acts of 
consecration’? which precede and follow the killing of the 
victim, and the purpose of which is to give to the viétim’s death 
its supernatural significance and to apply its blessings to the 
worshippers. Such were, for example, the presentation of the 
victim by the worshipper to the priest; the imposition of hands 
by the priest on the victim’s head with confession of sin, repre- 
senting the transfer of guilt from the worshipper to the victim 
—hboth these preceding the immolation; and, after the immo- 


lation, the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar, in token . 


of the worshipper’s union with God; the consumption of the 


fat by fire upon the altar, representing the divine acceptance | 


of the sacrifice; and, in some cases, a common feast upon the 
victim’s flesh, representing the fellowship of the worshippers 
both with God and with one another. 

Now for various reasons we must beware of pressing too 
closely the sacrificial analogies of Scripture. The sacrifices of 
the Jewish law were only “types and shadows,” and it is they 
which are to be interpreted by the realities of the Christian 
covenant and not vice versa. Again, those sacrifices were held 
to atone only for outward and “legal” faults: for wilful sin, 
sin ““ with a high hand,” they could not avail. At best, more- 
over, they secured from God only an “ overlooking” of sins, 
not his “forgiveness”: they could not cleanse the conscience 
from its guilt. And finally, we must not forget that, whereas 
in the case of the Jewish sacrifices we have only “ conven- 
tional”’ victims which have to be consecrated for their ritual 
purpose, in the case of our Lord the Victim is a divine Person 
whose essential attribute is holiness. Yet, with that premised, 
we may return to our question: are there, in the case of our 
Lord’s sacrifice, any words or acts corresponding to these “ aéts 
of consecration”’ which seem an indispensable feature of all 
other sacrifices? It is at this point that I bid you turn to the 
records of the Last Supper. 

I need not dwell, I think, upon the details of that scene in 
the Upper Room; for they are familiar to you. Jesus and his 
disciples constitute a chaburah or band of friends, who are 


94 


In the Eucharist 


met, according to Jewish custom,* to celebrate the Kiddush 
or service of Preparation for the Passover on the morrow. The 
candles are lit, and on the table, which is spread with a cloth, 
are set the rounds of hard-baked bread and a flagon of wine 
with a chalice. The bread and the wine were there for the 
ceremony of thanksgiving to God which, according to 
Jewish custom, each Jewish household observed at a “elena 
meal on the eves of Sabbaths as well as of great feasts; and 
there are reasons to suppose that our Lord had often held this 
meal with his disciples. But on this occasion he did that which 
he had not done before. Either as part of the customary 
benediction of the wine and of the bread, or in supplement 
to that customary ceremony, he blessed and broke and distri- 
buted, giving to these actions a clear sacrificial significance. 
“Take, eat: this is my Body. . . .” “This is my Blood of 
the new covenant, which is shed for many.” “‘ Body,” “‘ Blood,” 
“covenant,” “shed for many’; these words and phrases belong 
without question to the language of sacrifice. Remember that 
in every Jewish household that evening a similar supper was 
being held, and its main reference was to the Paschal sacrifice 
of the morrow. What Jesus did was, by his words and aéts at 
this supper, to show to his disciples that for him and for them 
the morrow’s sacrifice was to be other than they had thought. 
It was to be the sacrifice of a new covenant, not of the old; 
a real atonement, and not a ceremonial one; a sacrifice in the 
blessings of which they were here and now made most intimate 
partakers; and he himself was to be the Vidtim. In other 
words, at the Last Supper our Lord performed a¢ts and spoke 
words which made his death to be a sacrifice for sin, expressly 
investing it with this significance. Knowing, as St. John says, 
that his hour was come, and having loved his own that were 
in the world, he loved them unto the end. Death being plainly 
set before him, he took it upon himself as the price of the 
world’s pardon; offered himself to bear the burden of the 
world’s guilt and to expiate it in death; gave his own Body and 
Blood to his disciples in token that his self-offering to the 


* Cf G. H. Box in J.T.S., III., No. 11 (April, 1902), and W. O. E. 
Oesterley, “The Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy,” 
pp- 156 ff 

95 


The Christian Sacrifice 


Father was then and for ever inseparable from the utterness 
of self-giving to man, thereby setting God and man at one. St. 
John himself, it is true, does not recount the inStitution of the 
Eucharist: but he does recount far more fully than the other 
Evangelists the substance of the conversations which our Lord 
then had with his disciples. I think you will find that those 
wonderful chapters, culminating in he high priestly prayer, 
take on a new poignancy and depth of meaning, if you read 
them as the accompaniment of the acts of self-offering made at 
the Last Supper : and indeed no comments of scholars or divines 
upon those acts throw half the light that shines on them from 
that one sentence of the Lord’s: “‘ For their sakes I sanctify . 
(that is, I consecrate) myself, that they also may be san¢tified 
(that is, consecrated) in the truth ”’ (St John xvii. 19). 

Let me sum up the argument to this point. The sacrifice of 
the death of Christ consists of two principal elements or parts 
—on the one hand, his death or immolation as Victim on the 
cross, which thus became the world’s altar; and on the other 
certain acts and words of consecration, known to us as the 
Eucharist, which invested his death with its supernatural sig- 
nificance and in which he consecrated himself as the Viétim 
offered for the world’s salvation. We have seen that these two 
elements appear to be involved in the definition of all pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice; and the sacrifice of Christ is therefore in 
line with the Jewish syStem of atonement which went before 
it. At the same time Christ’s sacrifice is distinguished from 
these other sacrifices in certain important ways. In the first 
place, he is himself both the Priest at the consecration and the 
Victim of the death, thus completing once for all in expiatory 
oblation that work of priesthood and sacrifice which char- 
acterized his Incarnate Life. Secondly, by reason of that end- 
less life which belongs to Christ as Son of God, he now 
appears in heaven for us with the marks of his Passion, con- 
tinually pleading his sacrifice once offered in the world of 
time; and his whole oblation has thus an eternal aspeét. But 
thirdly—and this brings us to the further step which we must 
now take—our Lord exercises his High Priesthood not only 
in the timeless order of heaven, but also in this world of 
successiveness and change which surrounds his Church on earth. 


96 


In the Eucharist 


For this presence of our Lord with his Church on earth, 
we have his own sure promise as guarantee. “Lo, I am with 
you always, even to the end of the world” (Matt. xxviii. 20). 
“T will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you” (John 
xiv. 18). “ Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them ” (Matt. xviii. 20)— 
all these are promises of his presence in the Spirit, and the 
last more particularly, since it contemplates the Church at 
worship, of. his presence as our Priest. And it is in reliance on 
these promises, as well as on its own experiences, that the 
Church both in East and West, both in early and in recent days, 
has always believed that the unseen Priest, Celebrant, Conse- 
crator at every Eucharist was Christ himself. 

But there is yet more to be said than this. If we have been 
right in regarding the sacerdotal acts or acts of consecration as 
an integral and necessary part of every sacrifice, and in identify- 
ing these in the case of our Lord’s sacrifice with the Last 
Supper and the Eucharist, then the Eucharist, together with the 
ministry which descends through the ages from that Upper 
Room, must be regarded as the express provision which our 
Lord made for the participation by his Church on earth in 
his sacrifice. We are creatures of sense, and need what we can 
touch and see and hear; we live in fleeting moments of time, 
and need what can often be repeated: scattered over the globe, 
we need what can be multiplied in space. And so our Lord 
willed to consecrate his death to be the sacrifice of his people, 
not by a rite performed once and for all, but by a rite ever to 
be repeated, at all times and in all places, so long as the 
Church should remain on earth. That rite is the sacrifice of 
the Eucharist. 

At an earlier point in this paper, I entered a caveat against 
pressing too closely the details of ancient sacrifice in seeking 
analogies to the sacrifice of the death of Christ. There is, how- 
ever, another side to the matter: for the main features of 
sacrificial ritual among the Jews or other non-Christian peoples, 
however crude and even disgusting they appear to us to-day, 
yet represented deep-seated experiences and desires of the 
human heart which Sill crave for satisfaction. Since the 
Eucharist is a rite, made for the use of men, we shall expect 


H 97 


The Christian Sacrifice 


to find in it outward expression of these impulses and their 
satisfaction no less clear than in the “types and shadows” 
which it supplanted. A brief outline of these fulfilments will 
bring this paper to its conclusion. 

(i) In the Jewish sacrificial system the oblation began when 
the worshipper brought the victim to the door of the taber- 
nacle and handed it over to the priest. The victim, moreover, 
must be a domestic animal, and the choicest of its kind— 
something, that is to say, that was really the worshipper’s 
own, almost part of himself, and as worthy as possible of its 
sacred purpose. So in the Eucharist the Church’s offering 


begins at the Offertory, when the priest takes into the service _ 


the people’s gifts of bread and wine; and these gifts belong 
to the Staple human foods and must be the best of their kind, 
the wine fermented and the bread of purest wheat. 

(ii) A further common feature of sacrifice, whether Jewish 
or pagan, was the imposition of hands by the priest upon the 
head of the victim, together with the confession of sins, his 
own and his people’s. The Eucharist has its counterpart to 
this in the emphasis upon confession of sin which, either 
as part of the liturgy or outside it, has always been closely 
connected with access to the Holy Mysteries. Some would go 
further Still, and see in the direction which requires the 
priest to lay his hands upon the bread and chalice at the Con- 
secration a symbol of the guilt-bearing of Jesus on the cross. 

(iii) Then followed in Jewish sacrifices the viétim’s death, 
usually not by the priest’s own hand. In the Christian sacri- 
fice this finds its counterpart in our Lord’s death on the cross, 
and there is no repetition of this in the Eucharist. It is true 
that an often dominant tradition of Roman Catholic theology 
has sought to find in the Mass a real “‘immutation” of Christ; 
but the main Stream of Anglican theology—and a constant if 
sometimes tenuous stream of Roman theology from the Middle 
Ages to our own day—has not endorsed the speculation. On 
the other hand, the Church has loved to see in the separate 
consecration of each species—in the sundering of the Body 
and Blood—a figure or representation of the Lord’s immola- 
tion on the cross. 

(iv) In the legal sacrifices the immolation was succeeded 


98 


SO ee 


In the Eucharist 


and crowned by rites of great importance which represented the 
achievement of the whole purpose of the oblation. Such were 
the consumption of the choice parts of the victim by the sacred 
fire upon the altar, which symbolized its acceptance by God; 
the effusion of its blood, now pure through the expiatory 
death upon the altar, which spoke of the union of the 
worshipper’s life with God; and (in some cases) a sacrificial 
meal, representing the sacred bond of fellowship in which the 
worshippers were now joined with God and with one another. 
This acceptance and union of the worshipper with the Object 
of his worship are the end and purpose of all sacrifice; and 
they are realized in the Eucharist, not in symbol, but in reality 
in the two great acts or “moments” of the rite, the Con- 
secration and the Communion. They are realized in the Con- 
secration, because then the Church in consecrating its gifts of 
bread and wine to be the perfect and accepted offering of 
Christ’s Body and Blood thereby consecrates his death to be 
our sacrifice. They are realized in the Communion, because 
therein there is effected a real union of ourselves with God, 
conditioned on our side, indeed, by our penitence and faith, 
and yet on his side absolutely sure. And finally, we have in 
the Communion of the faithful a feast of Christian fellowship 
which finds its whole nourishment in feeding by faith upon 
the once crucified and now glorified Humanity of our Blessed 
Lord. 


NOTES 


1. Bibliography —The following writers and books will be 
found especially helpful in the Study of this subject: P. de la 
Taille, ““ MySterium Fidei”; Will Spens, “ Essays Catholic and 
Critical,” pp. 427 ff, and Art. in “ Theology,” vii, pp. 194 ff 
M. Lepin, “L’Idée du Sacrifice de la Messe’’; Fairbairn, 
“Typology of Scripture,” vol. 1i; Martensen, “ Christian 
Dogmatics,” §§ 156-169; Dorner, “System of Christian 
Doétrine,” iii, pp. 401-429. 

2. Terminology.—Few problems of theology present more 
difficulties of terminology than that of the Eucharistic sacri- 
fice. This is largely due to the faét that any treatment of the 
problem has to take account, not only of the Eucharist itself, 


99 


The Christian Sacrifice 


but also of different traditions of liturgical usage which have 
grown up around it. The relevant factors might be represented 
in tabular form somewhat as follows :— 


The Parts of 
Sacrifice or 
Oblation, 


1. Presentation of 
victim. 


Their Realiza- 
tion tn History. 


Their Realiza- 
tion tn the 
Liturgy. 


Nature of this 


Realization, Description. 





Our Lord’s re- 
solve to die, and 


The Offertory. Figurative. 


his journey to 
Jerusalem. 
The Crucifixion. 


of Immolation (sub- 


The separation of | Figurative. 
stantial obla- 


the species, 


2. Immolation 
Victim. 


tion). | 
Consecration (for- 


The Last Supper 
mal oblation). 


and the Euchar- 
ist. The Resur- 
epi ae 

ion, 
Heavesly Plead. 
ing. 


The Consecration | Actual (Christ be- 
andCommunion.| ing both Priest 
and Victim), 


3. Sacerdotal acts, 
investing the 
victim’s death 
with its super- 
natural signifi- 
cance, 








Both Anglican and Roman theologians show a tendency to 
apply the term “oblation” to one part only of the whole 
complex action of sacrifice, though in different ways: Roman 
theology tending to apply it to the verbal or ritual “ offer- 
ing” of the Host in the Eucharist, Anglican theology to our 
Lord’s “‘ offering” of himself in the death on the cross. There 
would seem real advantage, however, in using the word 
“oblation”” in a broad sense and as coterminous with “ sacri- 
fice,” “‘oblation” representing the purpose or form and 
“sacrifice” the matter of the whole complex action. The way 
is then open for a clear distinétion between the death or 
immolation of the victim (1.e., our Lord’s death on the cross), 
and the sacerdotal acts or consecration, which invest that 
death with its significance and apply its benefits to believers. 
This involves using “consecration” in a larger sense than, 
e.g., when we speak of “consecrating” the Eucharistic 
elements. But it is a sense which arises out of that other and 
more restricted sense, since it is precisely in and through the 
Church’s consecration of the species that our Lord, the un- 
seen Minister of every Eucharist, consecrates his death to be 
the sacrifice of our Redemption. The term has, moreover, the 
advantage of adequately representing the ritual aéts which 
accompanied the Jewish sacrifices; and of being attributed to 
our Lord himself at the Last Supper by the Fourth Evangelist. 


TOO 





The Real Presence 


i 1 


The Doctrine of the Real Presence 
Historically Considered . 


By DARWELL STONE 


I 


> Sa (@ MARKED feature of the earliest State- 

R ments concerning the Holy Eucharist 
43} is their simplicity. St. Paul, writing 
“4 WS before any of the Gospels, simply says 
. that the cup is “a partaking of ae 

<9 W blood of Christ” and the bread ‘ 

A Veg¥ partaking of the body of Christ,” mst 

ve to eat or drink unworthily is to be 
DS phi. CSS “guilty of the body and blood,” and 

that fe who e: eats and drinks “ without discerning the body ” 

“eats and drinks judgement” (1 Cor. x. 16; xi. 27, 29). The 
earliest of the four Gospels records our Lord’s words at the 
institution of the Sacrament: “‘ This is my body,” “ This 1 is 
my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many” 
(St. Mark xiv. 22-24; cf. St. Matt. xxvi. 26-28; St Luke xxii. 
19, 20). The latest of the four represents our Lord as saying : 
“The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the 
world” (St. John vi. 51). They are Statements plain enough, 
but statements without explanation. 

This simplicity is continued in representative writers of the 
second century. At the end of the first decade of that century, 
St. Ignatius of Antioch, without comment, describes the 
IOI 






The Real Presence 


Eucharist as “the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which 
suffered on behalf of our sins, which the Father in his good- 
ness raised” (Ad Smyrn., vii. 1). In the middle of the century, 
St. Justin Martyr, writing at Rome, in his description of the 
Eucharist as part of the service of the Church, says that the 


Christians of his time have been taught to regard the food ° 


received in it as “‘ both the flesh and the blood of the Jesus who 
was made flesh” (“‘ First Apology,” Ixvi. 2). Towards the end 
of the century, St. Irenzus, writing in Gaul, calls the bread 
the body of the Lord and the cup his blood (Adv. Har., iv. 
Xvili. 5). The language of these writers is like that of the New 


Testament. It States simply and plainly. It does not attempt — 


to explain. 
II 


It was not long before some attempts at explanation were 
made. At the end of the second century and in the opening years 
of the third, Tertullian, at Carthage, made use of a phraseology, 
a misunderstanding of which was destined to have deplorable 
consequences many centuries later. He described the Eucharistic 
bread as the “figure” of the Lord’s body, and explained our 
Lord’s words, “This is my body,” as meaning “ This is the 
figure of my body” (Adv. Mare., iii. 19, iv. 40). About the 
same time, Clement of Alexandria spoke of the “symbol of 
holy blood” (Ped., ii. 2. 29. 1); and a few years later a 
liturgy used in the Church at Rome called the Eucharistic 
elements the “ copy”’ and “antitype”’ of the body and blood 
of Christ (E. Hauler, “Fragmenta Veronensia Latina,” 
pp- 112, 117). To understand such phraseology, it must be 
remembered that in the language of the time the word 
“figure” denoted reality as well as appearance, and that by 
“symbol” was meant that which is what it signifies (see C. H. 
Turner, The Journal of Theological Studies, vii. 595-597; 
A. Harnack, “ History of Dogma,” ii. 144, iv. 289; D. Stone, 
“A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist,” i. 29-31, 
66, 67). Later on, a further suggested explanation was that, 
through the consecration, the Eucharistic elements received a 
heightened or enhanced efficacy and power so as to be capable 
of producing spiritual effeéts and to become the body and 

102 








The Real Presence 


blood of Christ (see, e.g., St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “ Catechetical 
Lectures,”’ xix. 7). Such attempts at explanation show that the 
minds of Christians were pondering on the truth expressed in 
the original simple ways. 


Ill 


As time went on, the attempts at explanation which have 
been mentioned lent themselves to a diStinét cleavage of 
thought. In the fourth and fifth centuries there are two groups 
of writers on this subject among those whose works have been 
preserved. Both groups of writers agree that the consecrated 
Sacrament is the body and blood of Christ. They differ in 
their explanation. The one group maintains that the Eucharist 
is like the Incarnation, and the consecrated Sacrament like the 
incarnate life of the Lord, so that, as in the incarnate life the 
Godhead and the manhood are both there and both un- 
changed, similarly in the consecrated Sacrament the bread and 
wine continue to exist in all their reality while there is also 
the body and blood of the Lord. The other group minimises 
the continuance of the bread and wine, and lays stress on the 
change by which the consecrated elements are reordered or 
transferred or transformed or transmade into the body and 
blood (see D. Stone, “A History of the Doétrine of the Holy 
Eucharist,” i. 98-106). The writers of the first group are the 
precursors of those who in later times have said that the 
consecrated Sacrament is Still real and complete bread, real 
and complete wine, but also the body and blood of Christ. 
The writers of the second group are the precursors of those 
who, using the philosophy of the Middle Ages, have main- 
tained that at the consecration the substance of the earthly 
elements is so converted into the substance of the body and 
blood of Christ that the substance of bread and wine no longer 
remains. The latter doctrine is that known as TransubSstantia- 
tion. It was worked out with great skill and subtlety by the 
Schoolmen of the WeStern Church in the Middle Ages. The 
Schoolmen had to face great problems. They had inherited 
the traditional belief of the Church from the first that the 
consecrated Sacrament is the body of Christ. They were sur- 

103 


The Real Presence 


rounded by crude notions in which men could think of body 
only in the terms and after the fashion of the natural bodies of 
ordinary men and women in their present State. They had 
to deal with philosophies which demanded a reason and an 
explanation for all things. In the circumstances which thus 
existed the Schoolmen made a brave attempt to secure three 
results. First, it was their aim to maintain and protect the 
traditional belief that the consecrated Sacrament is the body 
of Christ. Secondly, they endeavoured to State and explain 
this belief in ways by which they might avoid a naturalistic or 
carnal way of underStanding it. Thirdly, they attempted to 
make their theological definitions and explanations such as to © 
be in harmony with the philosophy of their time. On the one 
side it was an appeal to tradition and authority. On the other 
it claimed the succour of reason and argument. In some re- 
spects this work of the Schoolmen had a great success. It 
succeeded in handing on the essential truth through a difficult 
period. It preserved the doctrine which made devotion possible 
and strong and deep. It laid the foundations of those systems 
of theology which sprang out of the Counter-Reformation and 
the Council of Trent. In other ways it had its weakness. Its 
very complexity and ingenuity made it an offence to some and 
caused a failure to produce its intended effect in others. If it 
gave its help to the Counter-Reformation and the Council of 
Trent, it also did something to bring about the Protestant 
revolt against Eucharistic doétrine. But, before we condemn it, 
let us remember that the scholastic theologians of the Middle 
Ages in the circumstances of their own times successfully 
maintained two great convictions. First, they preserved the 
truth that “‘ the rea} body and blood of the crucified and risen 
Lord, once slain and now living and glorious, are present 
under the species of bread and wine to be the spiritual food 
of those who worthily partake of the Sacrament.” And 
secondly, they taught that “ this presence is of a spiritual kind, 
not effected by any natural law, not of a body in any natural 
condition, uniquely wonderful, without true parallels else- 
where, though in harmony with the principles set up by the 
incarnate life of the divine Redeemer” (quoted ie the 
author’s “A History of the Doétrine of the Holy Eucharist,” 
104 


The Real Presence 


1. 395). However they may have failed in some respects, they 
deserve our gratitude for that which they thus successfully did. 


IV 
Eucharistic doétrine was one of the chief subjects discussed 


in the Reformation controversies. From those controversies 
five principal opinions emerged, each with its own strenuous 
advocates. TransubSstantiation was one of them. Belief in the 
presence of our Lord’s body and blood in the consecrated 
Sacrament, together with the continued existence of the whole 
substance of the bread and wine, was another. The opinion 
that the consecrated Sacrament itself is no more than bread 
and wine, but that the faithful communicant at the moment 
of reception inwardly receives the body and blood of Christ, 
was a third. A fourth was that the faithful communicant 
receives, not the body and blood of Christ themselves, but 
their virtue and power. According to a fifth, the Eucharist is 
a merely symbolical: rite, a remembrance of the past. 

In view of these controversies, the Church of Rome at the 
Council of Trent affirmed TransubStantiation, and anathe- 
matized those who denied this doétrine. A different line was 
taken in the Church of England. Transubstantiation, probably 
in a carnal sense, not in the sense of the scientific theologians, 
was repudiated in the twenty-eighth of the Articles of Re- 
ligion. The opinion that the Eucharist is merely symbolical 
also was rejected. The phrasing of the formularies and the 
adtual course of events left any of the intermediate beliefs 
tenable within the English Church. A hundred years ago the 
belief that the consecrated Sacrament is the body of Christ 
was held by but few, and contrary opinions had become widely 
prevalent. During the last hundred years the number of those 
who believe the real presence in a proper sense has marvellously 
increased. 


V 


What comment is to be made on the facts of the past and 
the present history? Let us go back to the fifth century. I 
have mentioned the two groups of theologians then existing; 

105 


The Real Presence 


the one laying Stress on the continued existence of the bread and 
wine, the other emphasizing the change effeéted by consecra- 
tion, both agreeing that the consecrated Sacrament is the body of 
Christ. For my own part, I do not think the difference between 
the two devotionally or spiritually important. Neither do I think 
the difference between the successors of these two groups—be- 
tween, that is, the advocates of Transubstantiation in its proper 
theological sense, and the advocates of a real presence which 
does not confliét with the continued existence of the substance 
of bread and wine—important for Christian life and praétice. 
What in my judgement is important for the Christian soul is not 
whether the substance of bread and wine is absent, but whether | 
the Lord is present. Therefore, while I do not think the differ- 
ence between the two groups of theologians in the fifth century, 
or between their successors in later times, devotionally and 
spiritually important, I believe their common ground, the faét 
that the consecrated Sacrament is the body of Christ, to be of 
supreme importance. 

Here I may be met by a challenge—the challenge whether 
it is the case that a long and great succession of English theo- 
logians since the sixteenth century have missed something 
which really matters. It may be said: “So long as the 
faithful communicant receives his Lord, is it of consequence 
what the Sacrament itself is, apart from his reception of it?” 
It is the well-known appeal of the great English writer, 
Richard Hooker—‘ May we not concentrate on what the 
faithful communicant receives, and shelve all discussion as to 
everything else?”’—an appeal made by Hooker with splendid 
force and culminating in the famous words: “ What these 
elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to 
me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ. 
. . . Why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faith- 
ful communicant but this: O my God thou art true, O 
my soul thou art happy!’ (“Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical 
Polity,” V. Ixvii. 12). 

It is a serious thing to take up a different position from that 
of the long succession of great and good men in the English 
Church who have found it sufficient to say that the faithful 
communicant, when he receives the Sacrament, receives also the 

106 


The Real Presence 


body of the Lord. But there are reasons—and in my judge- 
ment they are cogent reasons—for so acting. The first reason 
is that fidelity to history requires a fuller assertion. Simple as 
are the earliest Statements, they do not suggest a receptionist 
view. The words of our Lord, “This is my body,” do not 
lend themselves to an interpretation “‘ When you receive this, 
you will receive my body also.” Vague as some of the later 
statements may be, no fair explanation of them can make them 
mean this. As thought, both East and West, reached fuller 
expression, the voice of the Catholic teachers uttering the mind 
of the Christian consciousness made declaration that the con- 
secrated Sacrament is itself the holy gift, the body of the Lord. 

Secondly, a receptionist view would not bear the weight of 
the historical doétrine about the Eucharistic sacrifice. For in 
the Eucharistic sacrifice that which the Church presents to 
God the Father is the Lord himself. It is the Lord, and, there- 
fore, all that he is. It is his body, it is his blood, it is his life. 
It is all that he has taken to be his own from the beginning 
of his humanity in the womb of his holy Mother to its con- 
summation in his passion and death, his resurrection and 
ascension and heavenly glory. Before we receive the Lord into 
ourselves, we need to present him in sacrifice to God the 
Father. This sacrificial offering of the Lord himself needs not 
only that there is a gift to ourselves—albeit the holiest gift— 
in our own souls but also that the Sacrament which we offer 
to the Father before we receive it is itself the body of the Lord. 

And, thirdly, the development of Christian life in Western 
Christendom has made familiar a use of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment which many have learnt to value. In its simplest form 
we find it when the anchoress of the thirteenth century is bidden 
to say— 

‘ “Glory to thee, O Lord, 
Thou Virgin’s Son,” 


as in the early morning she falls on her knees towards the 

high altar of the church where is the flesh and the blood of 

God (“ The Ancren Riwle,” pp. 13, 14 in the edition in “ The 

King’s Classics’’). In a more elaborate form it is found in 

those great processions of the Sacrament which Archbishop 
107 


The Real Presence 


Lanfranc instituted at Canterbury in the eleventh century. To 
these were added in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the rites 
of Exposition and Benediétion, in which honour was paid to 
our Lord by the adoration of Christians. All these forms of 
worship, from the simplest to the most elaborate, from the 
most individual to the most corporate, demand that the con- 
secrated Sacrament is the body of the Lord. 

The ancient belief, the sacrificial offering, the medieval and 
modern developments, all depend on the same truth; and it 
is a truth which demands much. No one should decry the 
simple piety, the genuine faith, of those generations of English 
churchpeople who found it enough to say that in their Com- — 
munion they received the Lord, or his life, or at the least his 
power and virtue. No one should despise even those who were 
satisfied to keep in remembrance that the Lord has died and 
that he will come again. On such beliefs humble and reverent 
and devout and unselfish lives were built up. Such lives have 
their lessons to teach to those who are convinced that they 
have reached fuller truth. For this is the conviétion. It is 
fuller; but also it is truth. The meal in the Upper Room grew 
by the providence of God into the Stately ritual and high 
ceremonial of the later Mass. The simple words uttered at 
the institution of the Sacrament received their true develop- 
ment when in explicit language it was said that the bread and 
wine become at the consecration the body and blood of the 
Lord. The real lesson of history is that here is the truth of 
God. Those in the English Church who lay Stress on it may 
well be conscious with heartfelt pain that they are parting 
company with many of their brethren in the past, and many 
even in the present. But they are conscious also that they are 
being faithful to a wider and Stronger tradition, the tradition 
which is the historic belief of the Catholic Church of Christ. 


108 


The Real Presence 


6 IL & 


The Real Presence Theologically 
and Philosophically Considered 


By A. E. TAYLOR anp WILL SPENS 


6% HAT is chiefly at issue in regard to 
; “ the doctrine of the Real Presence is not 
whether our Lord is present in some 
) special sense in the Eucharist. The 
great majority of Christians are agreed 
» that he is in a most real sense the 
Minister of the Sacrament, that it is 
Ws% he who consecrates and distributes the 
mr” ¢ s “ sacramental gifts by means of those 
who are not only our representatives, but members in his 
MyStical Body set apart for that end. The great majority of 
Christians are agreed, also, that in some real sense our Lord 
is in the Eucharist not merely the Priest, but the Victim, given 
in that most holy rite to be our sacrificial food, the Bread of 
Life and the Cup of Salvation. The majority of Christians go 
further, recognizing that the Eucharist is not merely a feasting 
upon a sacrifice, but that in and through the Eucharist our 
Lord’s death is made to be our sacrifice, and that, in conse- 
quence, in the Eucharist he is himself our oblation. 

What is at issue is whether we must separate ourselves from 
what it is well to remember is also a majority of Christians 
and of Christian thinkers, or whether we do right when, in 
common with the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern 
Orthodox Church, we think of the bread and wine as changed 
at consecration; and whether we do right when, after con- 
secration, we so identify the Sacrament with our Lord as to 
direct to the Sacrament those physical aéts by which we express 

109 





The Real Presence 


our adoration of him. It cannot be too strongly emphasized 
that it is this last question which is of primary importance. 
Analysis of the significance of consecration is but the necessary 
basis for Eucharistic adoration. We are concerned not with 
philosophical or theological discussion in itself, but with the 
vindication of our right to participate here on earth in the 
heavenly worship of the Lamb. No one who has (for 
example) seen even a reproduction of Van Eyck’s great 
picture of that worship, and who has any sense of the mean- 
ing of Christianity, can help feeling the desire both to adore 
him who was slain for our salvation and to give the fullest 
expression to this adoration; to see his Lord set before his eyes 
as the one true sacrifice, and to embody adoration in every 
action and every ceremony which has been devised to express 
worship. Nor are we concerned only to secure the fulfilment 
of an aspiration, but rather to maintain a deeply treasured 
experience. Precisely, in the degree of our temptation to sin, 
we are aware of two things: first, that sheer adoration is an 
experience so moving that the desire to preserve participation 
in that experience affords one of the strongest safeguards 
against sin; and, secondly, that for many at all times, and for 
all at times, sheer adoration is most possible when it is directed 
to some visible objeét which is reckoned an embodiment of 
God. That latter faét gave always the urge to idolatry. What 
we dare to claim is that in Christianity the divine wisdom has 
not ignored this faét of our nature, but has afforded to it at 
long last legitimate opportunity, and that without idolatry we 
may worship our Lord present on the Altar under the forms 
of bread and wine. 

At this moment it is important to point out that it is not 
we who assert this, but those who deny our right to assert it, 
who depart from the teaching of the Church of England and 
seek to narrow its bounds. When men denounce this doétrine 
as an illegitimate innovation in the Church of England, they 
habitually ignore the Bennett judgment. The Court of Arches, 
and even, on appeal, the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
Council, refused to condemn as unlawful in the Church of 
England Mr. Bennett’s position, either in respect of his state- 
ment, ““I am one of those who . . . myself adore, and teach 

IIo 


The Real Presence 


the people to adore, Christ present in the Sacrament under 
the form of bread and wine, believing that under their veil 
is the sacred Body and Blood of my Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ,” or in respect of his use of the phrase: “The real and 
actual presence of our Lord upon the altars of our churches.” 

But we are not content to claim, as we have the right to 
claim, that the doétrine for which we stand may legitimately 
be taught in the Church of England. We claim that it is the 
truth; and, in particular, that denial of this do¢trine depends 
on a materialism of thought, which has warrant neither in 
experience nor in philosophy. Sacraments are not peculiar to 
Christianity or even to religion. They are the ordinary coin 
of personal intercourse. Is a kiss primarily a physical act, or 
is it not a spiritual act having a certain physical expression? 
Is the Cenotaph nothing more than a block of Stone, and a 
Union Jack nothing more than a parti-coloured piece of 
cloth? In very truth all men’s deepest feelings find expression 
by means of actions and objects, which are made the vehicle 
of their expression. If there is danger in carrying this to 
excess, it is no Catholic invention, but one lesson to be learnt 
from modern psychology, that in the case of any deep feeling 
some such expression 1s conducive to a healthy emotional 
life. 

The problem for philosophy is how far we are justified in 
thinking of a sacramental action or object in terms of its 
whole significance, in regarding it as something which is 
fundamentally spiritual, but has a certain physical expression, 
or whether we mutt treat the physical expression as peculiarly 
real, or at the least as something which mutt be carefully 
distinguished in thought. In life we do not so distinguish. 
A newly dubbed knight never thought of the accolade as a 
physical aét with a certain symbolic significance, but rather as 
an aét of admission which had a certain ceremonial expres- 
sion. In precisely the same manner Catholics think of Baptism, 
not as a physical act with a certain symbolic significance, but 
as a spiritual act which has a ceremonial expression. Nor is 
the case different when we turn to objeéts which are “‘ effectual 
signs.” Take the commonest of such objeéts—a shilling or 
any other piece of token coinage. In this case emotions are 

III 


The Real Presence 


not involved, yet, even here, who ordinarily distinguishes in 
thought between the physical properties of the object and those 
other opportunities of experience which it affords as being a 
coin of the realm? A physical object is a complex of oppor- 
tunities of experience, including such experience as leads us 
to assign to the object shape, size, and position. We do not, 
in fact, separate in our thoughts those opportunities of experi- 
ence which admit of analysis and correlation in terms of 
the motion of electrons, and others which do not; provided 
always that these further opportunities of experience possess 
a comparable certainty. We feel assured that a shilling 


will continue to have its purchasing price, and, being so- 


assured, we think of the shilling as something round, hard, 
shiny, and with this purchasing power. Indeed, in our thought 
it is this last which is fundamental. 

The question remains as to how far this way of regarding 
objects can be justified when we try to think precisely. Cleariy 
the opportunities of physical experience have a more funda- 
mental basis and are more certain than the purchasing power. 
The opportunities of physical experience are determined b 
natural laws, the purchasing power merely by A& of Parlia- 
ment. The certainty of the latter is for ordinary purposes 
sufficient, but it is clearly less. Again, the association of the 
different physical properties is determined by natural law, the 
further association with these of a certain purchasing power is 
determined by Parliament. On grounds both of certainty and 
of the basis of association, we are bound to distinguish, if we 
think precisely, between the natural properties of the object 
and its properties as an effectual symbol. 

But the matter is different if, or when, the effectual sym- 
bolism of an object is determined by the Divine Will, and has 
therefore the same basis as has its natural properties. An 
earlier paper has advanced reasons why we may safely argue 
from the recorded words of inStitution, and from these as 
having a sacrificial background and therefore to be interpreted 
in terms of sacrificial conceptions. Men may have doubted, 
and did doubt, in our Lord’s day as in other ages, whether 
sacrifices really effeéted spiritual results. There is neither 
evidence nor probability that, if @ sacrifice was regarded as 

I12 


SE ee ee ee eee 


The Real Presence 


securing spiritual results, ritual participation in an appointed 
manner and in a right spirit would not, as a matter of course, 
have been supposed to secure participation in those blessings. 
If our Lord meant men to regard his Death on the Cross as 
an effectual, and the one effectual, immolation, the words 
“This is my Body ” and “ This is my Blood” must be held to 
mean that, receiving the broken bread and the cup which has 
been blessed, we are made partakers in the blessings of that 
sacrifice. The words employed suggest also participation in 
the very life of Christ, and this is in any case involved in our 
participation in the blessings of his sacrifice. 

And this opportunity is afforded by the objeéts. On any 
Eucharistic doétrine—whether Zwinglian or Catholic—the 
significance of the aét of communion is drawn from a 
significance assigned antecedently to certain objects. If the 
symbolism is effectual, if we have no mere tokens but a sacra- 
ment, and if, in consequence, the consecrated bread and wine 
afford real spiritual opportunities, then these opportunities 
have the same basis as the opportunities of physical experience 
—namely, the Divine Will, and their further association with 
the opportunities of natural experience has also this same 
basis. There is no ground, either in regard to certainty of 
opportunity, or in regard to ultimacy of association, for 
treating the opportunities of physical experience as more 
fundamental. Nor is there any ground in the fact that the 
appropriation of the spiritual opportunities involves our co- 
operation. That is true also of the opportunity of physical 
nourishment, the only difference being that at the higher level 
of spiritual nourishment a higher and therefore conscious 
co-operation is required. Host, or Chalice, is a complex of 
opportunities of experience, some physical but some spiritual, 
all equally determined by the Divine Will and all associated 
by that Will. Accuracy of thought requires us to recognize, 
in consequence, that, in each case, these opportunities con- 
Stitute a single object. 

If it is difficult to recognize this, it is only difficult because 
we tend to think of matter as peculiarly real, and of things 
spiritual either as less real or, at least, as some separate realm. 
Yet, unless we learn to think of all our experience as a unity, 

I 113 


The Real Presence 


which is partially, but only partially, analyzable in terms of 
electrons, there is no room for either freedom or immortality. 
On the other hand, if we do so think of all experience 
(physical or spiritual) as a unity, we are justified, in all but the 
last resort, in our ordinary everyday habit of regarding oppor- 
tunities of physical experience, and any opportunities of other | 
experience which may be associated with these, as constituting 
the object in question. Even in the last resort, we must so 
regard an object if, as in the case of the Blessed Sacrament, 
it is the Will of God which attaches opportunities of spiritual 
experience to certain pre-existing opportunities of material 
experience. Before consecration the Host has certain oppor-’ 
tunities of physical experience. We can see it as round and 
white; we can feel that it is round and hard; it affords physical 
nourishment. After consecration it is changed, not by any 
change in the opportunities of experience which previously 
constituted the object, not by any change in anything which 
can be correlated in terms of electrons, but by the addition 
of opportunities of spiritual experience in that, by devout com- 
munion, we are made partakers in Christ. We are guilty of 
gross materialism if we think of the Host, or Chalice, in terms 
only of their physical properties, as purely physical objects, 
rather than in terms also of the opportunities of spiritual 
experience they afford, opportunities which are no less funda- 
mental, and which are infinitely more significant. 

The bread and wine have been described as reordered, re- 
made, changed, and transubStantiated in and through con- 
secration. Enough has been said to explain and to justify 
our use of the first three of these terms. The complex of 
opportunities of experience which constitutes bread or wine is 
reordered, remade, and changed in and through the inclusion 
of opportunities of spiritual experience no less ultimate and 
associated no less ultimately than the pre-existing opportunities 
of physical experience. More must, however, be said in order 
to justify and to explain such use as can properly be made of 
the term “ transubstantiated.” Whatever be the difficulty, or 
impossibility, of applying the whole scholastic conception of 
substance and accidents to all sensible objects, the conception 
of an underlying non-material principle of unity is necessarily 


114 


The Real Presence 


involved in the Christian conception, at least of the bodies of 
men and women. That is involved in the doétrine of their 
immortality when immortality is understood in the manner 
which we seek to express when we speak of the resurrection 
of the flesh. No one now holds that there will be a re- 
assembling of certain material particles. We do hold that 
behind and determining the physical objects which constitute 
our bodies lies a nature common in general character to men, 
but unique in detail to each individual; that this nature is 
something which we have through our generation here on 
earth; but that it is something which is ours to all eternity, 
and which requires that again in another world it will have 
no less, but more perfect expression. We are not merely 
spiritual beings. We are spiritual beings who have a particular 
nature. We came into existence and acquired at the same time 
that nature in and through the order in which we now live, 
through the fact that others had like natures and that these 
found expression, in objects, in that order. It is such expres- 
sions that we identify with the personalities in question. Not 
any and every complex of opportunities of experience which 
exists in whole or part because of your or my being and nature, 
even if the opportunities in question are determined and not 
merely determinable; but those immediate expressions of in- 
dividual personalities which are secured when certain specific 
opportunities of experience, and the resulting complexes, have 
come into being as an immediate consequence of that law, of 
that determination of the Divine Will, which affords and 
conditions the a¢tualization of essential elements in the nature 
of the personalities in question. 

What we are bold to claim is that the sacramental gifts have 
this character. It is an essential part of the nature of man 
that he should be in relation to his fellows, influencing them 
and being influenced. He is a social animal. His nature in- 
volves of necessity ability for this; and, so long as man is in 
our order, his natural body affords the normal and necessary 
expression of this ability. In the case of our Lord, because he 
was a Divine Person, and in part because of his resurrection 
and ascension, this mutual relation involves something in- 
finitely more than is involved between man and man. He is 


II5 


The Real Presence 


the Vine, we are the branches; the source and Stay of our 
regenerate life; the Bread from Heaven. 

It is, as we believe, an essential element in our Lord’s 
humanity that he should be, not only the source, but the Stay 
of the supernatural life of all the regenerate, and, therefore, 
of those on earth as well as those in heaven. So far as we on 
earth are concerned, the a¢tualization of this necessary element 
is secured in and through the institution of the Eucharist, and, 
therefore, as we have seen, in and through certain visible 
objects which afford opportunities of spiritual as well as 
natural experience. The Divine Will determines that our Lord © 
shall be the stay of our life and that he shall thus be so. It is 
not that there is any change in his nature. His incarnation 
determined once and for all, as an essential element in his 
human nature, that he should be the Stay of our supernatural 
life. What was determined in and by the Divine institution 
of the Eucharist was merely the manner in which this is 
actualized in the regenerate order as it is on earth. Host and 
Chalice involve no change in our Lord’s nature. They involve 
no “impanation.” But each is an immediate expression of 
his being and nature, and a no less immediate expression than 
in his heavenly body, which also involves no new nature, but 
only the necessary actualization of elements in that nature 
which he took of Mary. We may speak of our Lord’s sacra- 
mental body and of his natural body as we speak of his heavenly 
body and his natural body. We may thus distinguish different 
expressions of his humanity. But it is essential to recognize 
that if we are thinking not of the mode of expression, if we 
mean by “body” not a particular objeét, a particular complex 
of opportunities of experience, but that which determines and 
necessitates the existence of this, then there is but one such 
reality—namely, that nature which our Lord assumed at his 
incarnation and which is ever his. That nature found a 
necessary expression in accordance with natural law in his 
natural body; it finds a necessary expression in accordance 
with laws which, as yet, we do not know in his heavenly 
body; it finds a necessary expression sacramentally in Hott, 
or Chalice, and that in a manner no less directly determined 
by the Divine Will. At consecration, bread and wine are not 


116 


The Real Presence 


only changed, but they become objeéts which are what they 
are in virtue of, and because of, that same reality, that same 
sacred humanity, which lay no more direétly behind our Lord’s 
natural body and which lies no more direétly behind his 
heavenly body. It is as asserting this truth that we can speak 
of the bread and wine as transubStantiated. On the other 
hand, that term cannot be accepted in any sense which “ over- 
throweth the nature of a sacrament” by treating consecration 
as effecting a nature miracle rather than a miracle of grace, 
or which seeks to treat as de fide the scholastic theory as to the 
relations of accidents and substance after consecration, a theory 
which involves a particular philosophy and is open to grave 
objections. In common with the theologians of the Eastern 
Orthodox Church, we can accept the term “ transubstantiated ” 
as serving to express a truth which is of great importance; 
but, in common with these theologians, we may well rejoice 
that we are not committed to a particular philosophy, and to 
certain deductions from that philosophy, to the extent which 
is the case in the Roman Catholic Church. 

Before passing, in conclusion, to deal specifically with the 
adorable presence which thus results, we would wish to safe- 
guard Anglo-Catholic belief from misunderstanding on one 
point which is of great importance. It has been said earlier 
that the institution of the Eucharist determines and conditions 
the manner in which our Lord is given to be our spiritual food, 
thus actualizing an essential element in his nature. It does not 
follow that the grace which is received in communion is not 
given otherwise if or when communion is impossible, or if 
and when in all good faith men fail to recognize communion 
as the divinely appointed means of securing this grace. There 
is involved, however, that even such abnormal bestowal of 
grace is dependent on the fact that participation in the blessings 
of our Lord’s sacrifice and in his life is obtainable through 
communion. It is as being the One Sufficient Sacrifice for sin 
that our Lord is given normally, or abnormally, to be the source 
and stay of our supernatural life. It is in and through the 
Eucharist that down the ages he consecrates his death to be 
our oblation; and, in consequence, any bestowal of the grace 
of communion, otherwise than by communion on bread and 


117 


The Real Presence 


wine consecrated by his authority and on his behalf to be 
his Body and Blood, results from the fact that in the Eucharist 
he does thus make his Death to be our sacrifice, and from a 
general law of the Divine economy that God freely gives 
grace to men according to the measure of their ability to 
receive. The abnormal beStowal of the grace of communion, 
partial or complete, and any part played by objets in such be- 
Stowal, depends thus on that determination of the Divine Will, 
which determines the normal beStowal of that grace in com- 
munion, but does so mediately and not diredtly. 

There remains the specific question of Eucharistic adora- 


tion. It is worth while to State the issue quite formally. When — 


a complex of opportunities of experience, which constitutes 
an object, exists as a complex in immediate dependence on a 
law which directly determines the aétualization of essential 
elements in our Lord’s nature, does such a relation exist 
between that object and our Lord as to justify our identifying 
the object with him, in so far as such identification is involved 
in directing to the object those aéts by which we express our 
adoration? In brief, when we genuflect are we guilty of 
idolatry? Now there is no doubt that our Lord is not cor- 
poreally present in the sense in which he was present in Gali- 
lee. The shape of the object, and all those other opportunities 
‘of experience which can be correlated in terms of electrons, 
are not determined by our Lord’s human nature. In tradi- 
tional language, our Lord is said to be present, but to be 
present under the forms of bread and wine. The difference 
is thus safeguarded; but an adorable presence is asserted. And 
this may, and indeed mutt, be asserted. The fundamental faét, 
which justified identification of our Lord’s natural body with 
him, was that certain opportunities of experience were directly 
determined by laws which secured and conditioned the neces- 
sary actualization of essential elements in his nature, and that 
these laws direétly determined the emergence of the complex 
as such and as including these opportunities. Whether or 
not physical opportunities are thus direétly determined is a 
secondary matter, unless a supreme reality is given to physical 
experience. This fundamental consideration is no less true in 
regard to the Blessed Sacrament as it comes to be upon the 


118 


EE ———_- oe eee 


The Real Presence 


Altar through the consecration of bread and wine. Here also 
the object comes to be what it is, and certain of the oppor- 
tunities it affords come to be, through a law, through a de- 
termination of the Divine Will, which direétly secures and 
conditions the necessary actualization of essential elements in 
our Lord’s nature. It must be added that the Blessed Sacra- 
ment affords and mediates a far closer relation to our Lord 
than did his natural body. In such circumstances Eucharistic 
adoration is not only legitimate, it is the inevitable conclusion 
of the whole matter unless we allow our thought to be subtly 
influenced by current materialism. We engage in theology in 
order that we may adore, and theology justifies our adoration. 
But one consideration must ever be remembered. All adora- 
tion is in the last resort due to God and to God alone. It is 
because our Lord is very God as well as man that we both 
may, and mutt, adore. 

Lastly, we are bound to maintain that the opportunity for 
adoration does not, if the Sacrament be reserved, pass with 
the ending of the Mass. If the Reserved Sacrament 1s capable 
of giving communion; if there is in the tabernacle That, the 
devout reception of which unites us to our Lord, then all 
which has been said of the Sacrament is true of the Sacrament 
when reserved. 


“Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee, 
Who in thy Sacrament dost deign to be.” 


119 


The Approach to the 


Presence 


a 1 & 
The Holy Spit and the Eucharist 
By A. E. J. RAWLINSON 


Pisee RS calar C7 eao\ HE Christian doétrine of the Holy 


KFT ax, NY) Spirit, theologically and metaphysic- 
Cal Gq 1 ER2S*& ally considered, presents problems of 
mae se P 


B%. a profound and difficult character 
aariik 








which I do not ignore, but upon the 
% discussion of which it is no part of my 
x EY Any present purpose to embark. I shall 
ER ®, assume simply that we worship one 


= 5 
pe 





Cooks EO SYSVGE God in Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit; and I propose in the first instance to say a few words 
from the point of view of a New Testament Student about the 
New Testament doétrine of the Spirit. 

By the New Testament writers the Holy Spirit is regarded 
primarily as being the Divine Agent of inspiration, life, power, 
supernatural guidance, and grace. The Spirit is known, and 
his working is recognized, because men have experienced in 
manifest and manifold ways his a¢tivity and power. The 
Spirit, in other words, is the source of that element in the lives 
of Christians individually, and of the Christian Church cor- 
porately, which the Church itself recognizes as being plainly 
supernatural. 

The Spirit, moreover, is the Spirit of unity. Gifts, super- 
natural endowments, capacities, functions, bestowed by the 
120 


; 


Holy Spirit and the Eucharist 


Spirit upon individuals, are all meant to be used, according to 
the teaching of St. Paul, in the interests of unity, and with a 
view to the edification or upbuilding in love of the one 
Church, which is the one body of the Christ. The Holy 
Spirit—and this is a point which has been recently emphasized 
afresh by the Presbyterian writer, Dr. Anderson Scott, of 
Cambridge—is the source and the living bond of the Christian 
kowevia or Fellowship.* St. Paul writes not merely of “ unity 
of spirit” in the modern weakened sense of that phrase: he 
speaks rather of “the unity of the Spirit”;+ and he would 
have Christians regard as “ Ante ” of the Spirit’s working and 
power not merely such apparently miraculous phenomena as 
inspired prophecy, speaking with tongues, and the rest, but 
such virtues and graces as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kind- 
ness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control,t which 
to his thinking are in the end more important and not less 
supernatural than the gifts which were over-valued at Corinth. 
Without charity or love, the culmination and crown of them 
all, there is no other “ gift”’ which is of any significance or 
value whatsoever.§ 

I have begun in this way, because I desire to say a few 
words about a certain theory of ministry. It has been held by 
some scholars that the ministry of the Church was not origin- 
ally official, but “ charismatic’; by which it is meant that in 
the first days of the Church the authority to minister, and 
among other things to celebrate the Eucharist, was dependent 
not upon ordination, but upon the possession by individuals 
of a “charisma,” or “ gift” of the Spirit, which the Church 
recognized but did not bestow. It is impossible to prove upon 
the basis of historical evidence that the Eucharist was never 
in early times celebrated by unordained men; and the early 
document known as the Didache contains some evidence which 
is calculated, as far as it goes, to suggest that the Eucharist was 
occasionally celebrated by “ prophets.” With regard to this 
theory I would say certain things. 

In the first place, what is described as the “charismatic” 


* C. A. Anderson Scott, “Christianity according to St. Paul,” pp. 
158 sq. 
+ Eph. iv. 3. t Gal. v. 22. 8x Cor. 13, 
I2I 


The Approach to the Presence 


theory of ministry, in so far as there is justification for it at 
all, appears to me to involve a one-sided and disproportionate 
emphasis upon certain aspects of the New Testament evidence, 
to the exclusion of others; and those who in modern times 
are the advocates of a “prophetic,” as contrasted with an 
“institutional,” system of ministry are really attempting (to 
adapt some words of the present Dean of Wells) “to live, so 
to speak, in the apostolic age without the unifying control of 
the Apostles.” 

In the second place (as the same theologian has pointed out) 
the antithesis suggested by the contrasted use of the terms 
“charismatic” and “ institutional” is a thoroughly false one. © 
St. Paul believed that every Christian, as such, had his “ grace- 
gift’ from God.* Bishops, presbyters, and deacons, solemnly 
ordained by the laying on of hands, have as clear a right to 
be called “charismatic”? as has anybody else. As the Dean 
remarks, it is inconceivable that St. Paul “should have sup- 
posed that a Bishop, a presbyter, or a deacon could fulfil his 
function, if no ‘charisma’ were his to enable him’”’;f and, 
indeed, in the Pastoral Epistles St. Timothy is enjoined to 
“Stir up” the “charisma” which is in him, and which was 
given him through the laying on of hands.t 

In the third place—and this is perhaps a more important 
point still—the Church corporately, upon any adequate theo- 
logical theory, is under the guidance and inspiration of the 
Spirit; and the development from apostolic beginnings of the 
episcopate and priesthood, and the relative decline of the 
supposed primitive régime of free prophecy, must itself (I 
would suggest) be ascribed to the inspiration and guidance of 
the same Spirit by whom the prophets themselves were in- 
spired. The “ goodly fellowship of the prophets” has never 
wholly died out in the Church, and men prophetically inspired 
to be the bearers of a religious message for their brethren have 
been in some cases clergy, and in some cases laymen. With an 
Old TeStament writer we may say, “ Would God that all the 


SPM ACOL Via. 
t “Essays on the Early History of the Church and the Ministry,” 
edited by the late Dr. H. B. Swete, p. 75. 
1/2 Tim.'i, 63'cf. 2° Timiavina4. 
| ee dB) 


Holy Spirit and the Eucharist 


Lord’s people were prophets.”* We may believe, nevertheless, 
that the Church, taught by the Spirit, has been right in deter- 
mining that the minister who celebrates the Eucharist, and who 
in so doing is the representative agent at once of the Church 
and of the Lord of the Church, shall act not merely in virtue of 
any claim which he may possess to be regarded as a man of 
prophetic gifts or conspicuous power, but in virtue primarily 
of an authority bestowed by the Spirit through the laying on 
of hands at his ordination. According to the Catholic or “‘ in- 
Stitutional”” conception of the ministry, the purely personal 
“gifts” and qualifications of the minister are in Stri€tness 
irrelevant. The celebrant a¢ts, not in virtue of them, but in 
virtue of his office. At the same time, it must be claimed that 
his office itself is essentially “charismatic,” that the ministry 
is the gift of God to his Church, and that it is in the power 
of the Spirit that the ordained minister is enabled to aét. 

I pass now to a different theme altogether. It is maintained 
in much modern theological literature that according to the 
real thought (if not also a¢tually according to the language) 
of the writers of several of the New Testament books the 
conceptions of the risen Christ and of the Holy Spirit are for 
all practical purposes one and the same. St. Paul in a number 
of passages ascribes functions to Christ which he elsewhere 
ascribes to the Spirit, and the words “ Now the Lord is the 
Spirit”? are not infrequently quoted as pointing to a clear and 
explicit identification of the two. I have given expression 
elsewhere to my conviction that this view is mistaken, and 
that St. Paul’s real thought is more nearly expressed by the 
Statement that the risen Christ indwells his Church through 
the Spirit.t The Spirit, according to the thought of the New 
Testament writers, must, I believe, be regarded as actualizing 
and making real in the hearts of believers and in the fellow- 
ship of the Christian Society the presence of Christ, who, 
except in so far as he is thus operative in the Church through 
the Spirit, is to be thought of (to use the language of metaphor 
and symbol) as being “ seated at the right hand of God.” The 

* Num. xi. 29. 72 Corry, 

¢t A. E. J. Rawlinson, “The New Testament Doéttrine of the 
Christ,” pp. 158 sq. 

123 


The Approach to the Presence 


distinction, familiar to later Christian theology, and already 
more or less manifest in the language of the New Testament, 
between the Lord and the Spirit is, I believe, more than a 
verbal one. We hold communion with Christ: we are inspired 
by the Spirit. It is through the operation of the Spirit that we 
are enabled to know Christ, or to call Jesus Lord; but the Lord 
and the Spirit are distinét. There is, I think, a real and actual 
basis in experience (quite apart from the mere language of 
Scripture) for the kind of distinétion which the mind of the 
Church, under the guidance of the Spirit himself, came 
eventually to draw more and more clearly between the Spirit | 
and Christ, while at the same time affirming the unity of 
Both with the Father in the ultimate myStery of the Being of | 
God. 

My third and final theme—that of the relation of the Spirit 
to the Eucharist—may perhaps usefully be introduced by a 
reference to certain words which in the Fourth Gospel are 
ascribed to the Lord Jesus himself. The Lord in that Gospel 
is represented as having prophetically foreshadowed, in the 
course of a conversation with a woman of Samaria, the 
coming into the world of a new kind of worship. It is a 
worship no longer in any sense limited to a particular 
sanctuary or shrine. And it is a worship which is real, in a 
sense in which the older worship was not. It is described as 
a worship of God “in spirit and in truth ”*—that is to say, 
the new worship Stands, as contrasted with the old, upon a 
higher level of reality and truth, for the reason that it is based 
upon a fuller revelation, and, indeed, upon the alone finally 
adequate revelation, of the divine grace, truth, and power. 
The Church, taught and indwelt by the Spirit, has found 
access to the Father through Christ, who in this same Gospel 
is represented as saying emphatically: “I am the Way.”+ 
Through the Lord Jesus Christ, it is implied, and in fellow- 
ship with him through the Spirit, is the true living reality of 
worship. 

Of such worship, the true worship, offered by Christians 
through Christ to the Father in the power of the Spirit, the 


* John iv. 23 sq. + John xiv. 6. 
124 


Holy Spirit and the Eucharist 


Holy Eucharist is the centre and core. It is offered in the 
power of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, here as elsewhere, 
is the Source and the inspiring Agent of all true Christian 
prayer. It would be an interesting and profitable task to draw 
out and to exhibit the parallelism between the character and 
mind of the Spirit as expressed and reflected in the utterances 
of the New Testament, and the expression of the character 
and mind of the same Spirit in the actual language of 
Christian liturgies. Something along these lines has, indeed, 
recently been attempted by a group of writers who are con- 
nected with the so-called “ liturgical movement” in Southern 
Germany.* It is a fruitful and valuable mode of approach, 
though I cannot dilate upon it now. 

It is not, however, the only sense in which it has been 
commonly held by theologians that in the Church’s Eucharistic 
action the Holy Spirit is concerned. The Holy Spirit, it has 
been maintained, is not only the Inspirer of Christian liturgical 
prayer, and the Source of the reality and power of such prayers 
as are genuinely and effectively offered. He is also (it has been 
believed) the Divine Agent of whatever spiritual change is 
effected in the significance of the Elements as the result of 
their consecration, and in response to the prayers of the 
Church. That a spiritual change of some kind is effected 
appears to me to be the real conviction of practically all com- 
municants of all “ schools of thought’’; if only for the reason 
that no one (so far as I am aware) would believe that he had 
genuinely received Holy Communion, if he merely attended 
the liturgy and proceeded (instead of going up to the altar 
rails to receive) to consume privately a piece of unconsecrated 
bread. There is divergence of view within the Church as to 
what the precise change is which is effected; but there is 
general and widespread agreement (I would suggest) that 
consecration is necessary, and that some change is involved. I 
am persuaded that the best Christian theology refers instinc- 
tively the effects of consecration (however precisely they are 
to be defined or understood) to the work of the Spirit. 

I make this statement deliberately, notwithstanding the 

* See especially Guardini, ““ Vom Geist der Liturgie” (Freiburg im 
Breisgau, 1922). 

125 


The Approach to the Presence 


well-known faét that in the actual language of the New Testa- 
ment there is explicit reference made to the work of the Spirit 
only as the Inspirer either of Christians individually or of 
the Christian Church as a corporate whole. It has been pointed 
out by Bishop Gore and others that the cosmic functions 
associated, for example, with the idea of the universal activity 
of God in Nature, which in the Old Testament and in the 
deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom are ascribed to the Spirit, 
are in the New TeStament ascribed to the Logos or Word;* 
and it has been argued from this that the Holy Spirit is the 
Consecrator only of persons, and not of things. I can only. 
express my conviction that, from the point of view of a 
thought-out Christian theology, the limitation implied by this 
Statement is not to be maintained. I believe that the Word of 
God becomes operative through the active Energy of the 
Divine Spirit, that the activity of the Holy Spirit is effective 
throughout the length and breadth of the creation, and that 
whatever is wrought by the power of God in the Holy Com- 
munion is wrought through the Spirit’s agency and power. 
There was admittedly in early times some confusion in the 
mind of the Church between the functions of the Holy Spirit 
and those of the Word, a confusion which was not definitely 
cleared up until after Nicaa, when the foundations of a 
more fully thought-out Trinitarian doétrine were laid by the 
group of writers who are known as the Cappadocian Fathers. 
It is this confusion, I think, which accounts for the fact that 
the earliest form of liturgical invocation or epiclesis of which 
we have evidence—that, namely, which is contained in the 
Sacramentary of Serapion—is rather an epiclesis of the Logos 
than in the proper sense an epiclesis of the Spirit. The 
Church’s eventual doétrine, as it came to prevail more 
particularly in the Eastern part of Christendom, and as it 
finds devotional expression in the liturgies of the East, is the 
doétrine to which utterance is given in a familiar passage of 
St. Cyril of Jerusalem: ‘“ We call upon God, who loves man, 
to send forth his Holy Spirit upon the gifts now before him, 
that he may make the bread to be the Body of Christ and 


* Gore, “ The Holy Spirit and the Church,” p. 9. 
126 


Holy Spirit and the Eucharist 


the wine the Blood of Christ: for assuredly whatsoever the 
Holy Spirit has touched is sanctified and changed.’* I would 
submit that it is precisely this do¢trine—the doétrine that 
whatever change is effected in the significance and efficac 
of the Eucharistic elements, as the result of which they be- 
come, in whatever sense, Christ’s Body and Christ’s Blood, 
is a change wholly wrought by the activity of God through 
the Spirit in response to the prayers of the Church—it is this 
doétrine which is the true safeguard of Christian Eucharistic 
belief against any kind of association with such ideas as might 
properly be called magical. 

I have long been accustomed to think, rightly or wrongly, 
that the liturgy contained in our present English Prayer Book 
(more particularly if we take into account the extraordinarily 
jejune provision which it makes for a supplementary conse- 
cration to be effected by means of a bare recital of our 
Lord’s words of institution) is perhaps more immediately 
open to magical misunderstandings than any other liturgy 
which is known to me. A simple mind, I believe, might very 
easily run away with the idea that the Church teaches that 
consecration is effected by means of the recital over the 
elements of the words of our Lord as a kind of charm. It 
is for this reason that I personally would welcome the new 
alternative liturgy of the Deposited Book, which at length 
brings us into line not only with our brethren of the Orthodox 
Church of the East, but with those also who are in com- 
munion with us in Scotland, and in the United States of 
America, and in South Africa. The new liturgy is, to my 
mind, an enormous improvement. 

I am aware that in saying this I am saying something with 
which not everyone who is here present will be disposed to 
agree. There are those who are wedded to what are known as 
WeStern ideas, and who do not desire any change. But I 
would point out that from a doétrinal point of view there is 
in any case little ultimate difference. I suppose that many 
WeStern theologians, despite the fact that the words of the 
canon are in form a prayer addressed to the Father, have been 


* Cyril of Jerusalem, “ Catech. MyStag.,” v. 7. 
127 


The Approach to the Presence 


accustomed to think of the Lord Jesus himself as being the 
true Consecrator of the Eucharistic gifts. We are sometimes 
told that the priest who utters the words of the canon is speak- 
ing at once in the person of the Church and in the person of 
Christ, that it is Christ himself ultimately who utters the 
words, and that it is his word of power which makes the 
elements to be what they are; and no one can deny that that 
is a noble and Christian belief. I would, however, point out 
that, even upon this theory of consecration, it is of importance 
to remember that the Christ who thus utters the words is 
himself the Anointed of the Spirit, and that it is in the power 
of the Spirit that he speaks. Of his life, as incarnate upon 
earth, it is written that it was in the power of the Spirit that 
he was enabled to exorcize demons,* and that it was because 
the Father had given unto him the Spirit without measure 
that he was enabled to speak words such as “never man 
spake,’ words which the Church recognizes as being the 
utterances of God.t I would suggest, then, that in the Holy 
Eucharist also, if his words are with power, it is because they 
are words uttered in the power of the Spirit. But having said 
this, Iam nevertheless constrained to repeat in this conneétion 
my own personal preference for what I suppose to be the 
Eastern, as contrasted with the specifically Western, concep- 
tion of the modus operandi of Eucharistic consecration. I 
believe that the Eastern tradition is theologically right in 
laying the emphasis upon the effectual power of the Holy 
Spirit, and that the structure of the proposed new consecratory 
prayer in the alternative liturgy contained in the Deposited 
Book, which proceeds, after an address of praise to the Father, 
to an anamnesis or commemoration of the work of the Son, 
and then to the prayer that God with his Holy and life-giving 
Spirit may bless and sanctify the Eucharistic gifts that they 
may be unto us the Body and Blood of his Son our Saviour 
Jesus Christ, is, from the point of view of theology and right 
reason, a notable advance upon anything which the Church 
of England has possessed hitherto. 


* Matt. xii. 28. + John iii. 34; cf. John vii. 46. 


128 


ss Il & 
Christian Priesthood 


By CHARLES SCOTT GILLETT 


I 


Ze HE saddest reflection for all the 
By. ) children of the Church in England is 
wy: Fis S that they are not yet—and for many 
years to come, perhaps, dare hardly 
qv hope to be—wholly “of one mind” 
in their “house.” But it is a happy 
ee g~ 2, and hopeful sign, I think, that the 

aha field of conflict is being gradually 





AES LE 
sharp and serious, but they are not so many. Within the life- 
time of living men, some have been settled by the mere 
growth of knowledge; some have lost all their meaning and 
relevance by the mere lapse of time; some were the fruit of 
prejudices or misunderstandings now dissipated; yet more 
have been seen to have, at most, a subsidiary and derivative 
importance—to be aspects (so to speak) or fragments of some 
primary, some more central, problem whose solution would 
condition and include their own. Thus, in regard to the sub- 
ject now before us, it is no longer demanded of a speaker 
that he should discuss at length whether the Catholic Church 
is a visible or an invisible Society; for there remains only a 
small and dwindling band of Christians who would not 
admit that it is both. More and more Christians would 
admit not only that that Church, in so far as it is a visible 
corporate body, must needs be organized and must needs have 
officers for its organization, but also that the view of its 
charaéter and its claims which was held by the Apostles and 
their converts was, in historical fact, that which in our current 
discussions would be called the ‘‘ Catholic”? view. Indeed, 

K 129 


The Approach to the Presence 


many educated observers (in particular, many modern Students 
of psychology) who would certainly regard that view as 
erroneous, do, nevertheless, praise handsomely enough the 
Catholic’s grasp of the idea of institutional and corporate 
unity as generating a disciplined enthusiasm and effectiveness 
hardly to be attained by other means. And yet the real con- . 
troversy remains unsettled. For the eulogist, however compli- 
mentary to the Church and its ordered Ministry, is merely 
acknowledging that organization is in practice a condition 
and a means of usefulness—as who should be singing to a 
bridegroom the praises of marriage and the home, on the 
score that he will find his wardrobe the better cared for and 
his meals the more pundtually prepared! The Catholic’s 
central claim is quite remote from this; being no less than that 
the Ministerial government of the Church was actually given 
to it by God; that its institution was neither accidental nor 
due merely to the practical exigencies of a particular moment 
in its early history, but had—and has—the immediate and 
continuous san¢tion of a divine commission. 

It is clear that that claim implies certain definite and dis- 
tinctive beliefs, both historical and doétrinal. 

Historically, we believe that the words and actions of 
Christ himself and of his Apostles, as the New TeStament 
records them, are evidence that he instituted not only a 
Stewardship of grace, but grades and varieties of funétion and 
service amongst the Stewards: a hierarchy recognized and 
accepted by the whole Apostolic Church. We believe, further, 
that he provided not merely a temporary Ministry divinely 
qualified and commissioned to serve immediate evangelistic 
needs, but a means whereby the whole Church could have 
assured possession, for all time, of a Ministry having that same 
qualification and commission continuously unchallengeable and 
unimpaired; that he instituted for the Church such an instru- 
ment for the exercise of its representative and redemptive 
function in the world as should be no less permanent than that 
function itself; and, finally, that such an instrument did, as 
a fact of history, emerge and become eStablished, under the 
guidance of the Holy Ghost, in the three offices of Bishop, 
Presbyter, and Deacon. 

130 


Christian Priesthood 


Doétrinally, we believe that each minister, as being 
authorized to represent God to man and man to God in 
functions distinét from those which are common to all 
baptized Christians, receives the Holy Ghost in a special way 
for this special work: that he receives from God, that is, in 
the Sacrament of Holy Order a specific endowment for a 
specific purpose, and that, since the “character” conferred 
by that Sacrament is “indelible,” when once he has received 
episcopal ordination he cannot be ordained again. 

Now it is clearly impossible for me to discuss or defend in 
detail the assumptions on which these claims are based. That 
has been done with expert thoroughness and elaboration by 
many distinguished theologians, whose books are easily avail- 
able. I would wish rather to remind you that, in the matter 
of the Azftorical claim, it is not essential to its establishment 
that we should offer dogmatic solutions to every historical 
problem. What was the exact nature of the office held by 
Timothy and Titus? Was it local or general in its exercise? 
How precisely is the Nevroupyia tév moodytav, of which the 
Didache tells us, to be interpreted? Were all presbyters also 
bishops in Apostolic times? At what date and by what Stages 
did the title émiaKomos come to be used in its ultimately re- 
Striéted sense? These and a hundred other questions of 
historical detail have not yet been, and perhaps will never be, 
definitely and finally settled. Similarly, we are in no way 
bound to assert that the early Church as a whole was com- 
mitted to any particular theory of the reasons for the 
emergence of the threefold Ministry, or, indeed, had any clear 
perception of its importance in the divine economy. It is 
probable that the Apostles themselves, in their ordinations to 
the offices from which its final form was developed, were 
conscious only of a desire to meet obvious and immediate 
needs. And as with our historical, so also with our doéfrinal 
belief: I do not think we need, even if we dare attempt, any 
exact and rigid definition of the nature and effects of the 
grace of Holy Order. We are not competent to determine 
narrowly the mutual relation and interdependence of the two 
qualifications—the individual gift from God and the official 
authorization by men: the personal endowment and the 

13I 


The Approach to the Presence 


ecclesiastical commission. We may justly claim that both are 
needed and both received: that the Church commissions 
its ministers because Christ has done so: that God empowers 
the priest because he is chosen to serve and represent the 
people. I would maintain, in short, that we have neither 


need nor warrant to tie ourselves to any unalterable or | 


mechanical theory of “succession”? or “transmission,” by 
which to account for or exactly to trace and analyze the 
emergence of the Apostolic Ministry as Catholics accept and 
believe in it. The important point is that such a Ministry did 
in faét emerge: that it inherits the authority and commission 
of the government originally instituted, as having preserved 
with that government a clear historical continuity; and that 
its unanimous adoption in all Christian communities at a very 
early date, together with its unshaken stability and persistence 
up to the present time, points irresistibly to a divine purpose 
in its origin and a divine guidance in its development. 


II 


Now when we examine the attacks which have been made 
upon what is essential (as distinct from what is merely sub- 
sidiary or corroborative) in the Catholic doétrine of the 
Priesthood, they will be seen to have originated in a most 
honourable insistence—an insistence which has constituted the 
real Strength of Protestantism from its beginning—upon 
three very important principles: (1) That “ Sacerdotalism ” 
is the greatest of all dangers to individual Christians and to 
the cause of Christ; (2) that no need is more clamorous than 
the need of unity among Christian people; and (3) that the 
highest possible moral and spiritual Standard must be de- 
manded of and maintained by the Christian Minister. I do 
not doubt that it is because they fear that the acceptance of 
the Catholic claim may serve to obscure or belittle these prin- 
ciples that ProteStants in every generation have so firmly 
and so fiercely resisted it. I would ask you, therefore, to 
consider very briefly whether, if that claim be fully appre- 
hended and rightly interpreted, these forebodings, though 

132 


ee 


Christian Priesthood 


wholly genuine and intelligible, are not in faét unwarranted 
and unnecessary. 

1. Sacerdotalism.—This word, as applied to the Catholic 
doétrine of the Priesthood, may cover many kinds of accusa- 
tion. If it is a charge that we believe the Church to have a 
sacerdotal chara¢ter and a sacerdotal system, we admit it 
eagerly. That a sacrifice is the central fact of our religion; 
that Christ’s own sacrifice upon the Cross summed up all 
earlier sacrifices; that by its virtue every human being is 
empowered to offer his own life as a sacrifice to God—so much 
is common ground to all of us. It is true that, by theory and 
tradition, our opponents would dispute our further claim that 
the Eucharist (like the Last Supper) has the most intimately 
interdependent connection with the sacrifice of Calvary; and 
yet I believe that even of this perennial controversy the field is 
become narrower and the bitterness less. There are not now, 
I think, many “Evangelicals”» who would deny that in the 
apostolic age the principle of sacrificial worship was accepted 
as normal to Christianity and given a normal ritual expres- 
sion, or that the Eucharist is, in some real sense, the Christian’s 
sacrifice. But the Catholic religion is “ woven without seam”’; 
we cannot tear from the texture of it this fragment or that 
and leave the strength of the whole fabric unimpaired. And 
the centrality of sacrifice in Christian doétrine as manifested 
in the Eucharist as the central sacrificial aét of Christian 
worship, does clearly mean that the celebrant ministers of 
the Lord’s ded are priests in fact, whatever—at various 
periods and for various reasons—they may have been in 
name.* In this sense, then, as in others, “‘it is the Mass that 
matters.” For the institution of a rite whereby we may— 
not reiterate, but appropriate and “perceive the fruits of ” 
(and, in that sense, complete) a sacrifice which was, in its 
essence, independent of time and place: a rite which is to be 
continued always and everywhere “until his coming again,” 
involves the institution also of a means divinely sanétioned 
whereby that rite shall be duly, orderly, and permanently cele- 

* For English Christians it is een that those English Reformers 


who (after the example of Bucer) would gladly have seen the word 
expunged from our Ordinal were not allowed to have their way. 


133 


The Approach to the Presence 


brated. Thus, although—as Dr. Moberly warned us thirty years 
ago™—-we may not arbitrarily isolate the different functions 
of the Christian pastorate, yet we believe that the Apostles 
were divinely inspired, and that to celebrate and to ordain 
for celebrating the Holy Mysteries are two central corporate 
functions of the Church of Christ, and that for their fulfil- 
ment (even though not for that alone) the emergence and 
development of the Christian Ministry was sanctioned and 
directed by the Holy Ghost.t 

Now in regard to this—which I call the Catholic—helief 
about the Priesthood, I am not now primarily concerned to 
argue that it is true; I am concerned rather to assert that, 
when it is rightly understood, the sacerdotalism which it 
involves is not the sacerdotalism of which it is popularly 
accused. 

The word “ magic,” for example, is meaningless in its con- 
nection; for magic means such a mechanical coercion of the 
divine by the human will as no sacramental doctrine imagin- 
able by any educated Christian could conceivably embrace. ft 

Again, it is true that, by a special grace received, the 
Priest represents Christ as the giver of divine gifts, as teaching 
and feeding the flock, in a sense and manner different from 
that in which the whole Church is pledged to represent him 
to the world; but this has never meant, and can never mean, 
that the unique High-Priesthood of our Lord himself is be- 
littled or ignored. It is just because, and only because, the 
divine Priesthood is supreme, and the divine commission 
directly given, that the human Priest dare meddle with these 
mysteries at all.§ 


* Dr. R. C. Moberly, “ Ministerial Priesthood.’ Murray, 1897. 

+ A detailed exposition of this thesis is to be found in vol. ii. of 
Dr. Hamilton’s “The People of God.” Oxford University Press, 1912. 

t “It is doubtless the fear of priestly power and its intrusion into 
politics which has determined (from, say, Wyclif until now) the quite 
unphilosophical ‘magic’ scare among so many Protestants” (Baron 
F. von Hugel: “ Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion.” 
Dent, 1921). 

§ All sacramental acts have a heavenly and an earthly side; and 
though many Christian Fathers will use of priests or bishops such 
words as “tradere Spiritum Sanctum” or “ conficere corpus Christi” 


134 





Christian Priesthood 


Similarly, it is quite untrue that the ordained Priest “ comes 
between ”’ the individual soul and God, save in the very sense 
in which Christ himself thus ‘“‘came between,” to give Still 
easier access. All Christians are priests partaking of his Priest- 
hood: the whole Church is to be Chriét’s representative agent 
and instrument in the world; and the official Ministry is but 
the organ through which they are enabled freely and surely to 
fulfil their proper function. The “Priesthood of the laity” 
does not exclude but actually involves a ministerial Priesthood, 
through which it is formally manifested and expressed.* 

2. Christian Unity.—Let us turn, then, to the second 
charge—the charge that the stiffness and narrowness of our 
doétrine is a hurt and hindrance to the unity of Christendom. 
The true unity of Christians, we are to understand, is a 
spiritual thing—a thing which no kind or form of organiza- 
tion can concern or affect. Why, then (it is asked of us), do 
you talk pedantically of “valid” and “invalid” Eucharists? 
Why do you not rather welcome generously such unhampered 
intercommunion between all separated Christians as alone can 
give us any hope of bringing or keeping them together? Dare 
you say that thousands of Nonconformists have not received 
God’s grace through sacraments administered by men whom 
no Bishop has ordained? that thousands have not received it 
apart from any sacraments at all? Dare you thus arrogantly 
measure the mind of God by your traditions, or so set limits 
to the range and method of his working? 

And to all this I think our answer is clear. The unity of the 





(vide F. W. Puller, “‘ Orders and Jurisdiction,” pp. 52, 53), yet there is 
not one of them but could use the words of Hooker—‘“O wretched 
blindness if we admire not so great a power: more wretched if we 
consider it aught, and, notwithstanding, imagine that any but God can 
bestow it” (“‘ Ecclesiastical Polity,” V., Ixxvii. 1). 

* The whole Gospel, the whole story of man’s redemption and his 
hope, is the Story of mediation—of an approach to God through human 
agency; and to repudiate the official Priesthood of the Church is either 
to forget the oneness of all its members in the one Mediator, or 
foolishly to confound an equality of spiritual heritage with an identity of 
ecclesiastical function. It is permissible also to point out the strange 
lapse of logic by which some Protestants will attack the Catholic theory 
“4 the ministry, first on the ground that no one can share the Priesthood 
of Christ, and then on the ground that it is shared by every Christian. 


135 


The Approach to the Presence 


Church is indeed a spiritual unity: it is grounded in the one 
Life of the ascended Christ, imparted by the one eternal Spirit. 
And yet the Church on earth is visible, and in its earthly 
aspect that unity must be organic—its essence the mutual 
love and service of its members within the visible society, its 
fruit the conversion of the visible world outside. And so 
St. Paul, after his great Statement of Christian unity to the 
Ephesians, goes on at once to speak of the Ministry in its 
ordered grades and funétions as given for this very thing— 
“the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, 
unto the building up of the body of Christ till we all attain. 
unto the unity of the faith” (Eph. iv. 11-13). And since, 
above all things, the Lord’s Supper is the sacramental expression 
of this organic unity (so that no Eucharist can be “ solitary,” 
but is the aét of the whole Church, the bond between all— 
both living and departed—whom Christ has redeemed), it is in 
this great act especially that the Church dare tolerate no un- 
certainty or confusion—must be wholly satisfied that its per- 
formance is rightly ordered and its ministers duly accredited. 
If there exist such conditions to be fulfilled, the word 
“validity” does no more than describe their fulfilment. For 
us, then, the Episcopate and the Priesthood are not a bar to 
Christian unity: they are the very ground and centre of it. 
That we do not give an equal recognition to other Ministries 
does not mean that we deny that grace is given through their 
agency or that God can work his own will in ways of his 
own choosing; it means that for us there is no choice.* I do 
not doubt that if we had dared to be “ generous” with our 
trust, had tried to “heal the hurt” of God’s people “lightly, 


saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” the way of many 


* Two types of theological conundrum are popular in some circles. 
One (in which a party oF shipwrecked communicants usually figures) 
asks whether there are not Sater emergencies which a Strict appli- 
cation of the do¢trine of Apostolical Succession would fail to meet. The 
other asks what precisely happens at a Communion service celebrated in 
good faith by a layman or a Nonconformist minister. The answer to the 
first is that there probably are such emergencies. They are ex hypothesi 
abnormal, and therefore irrelevant; and no deductions from them con- 
demnatory of the doétrine itself are legitimate. The answer to the 
second is that we do not know. 


136 





Christian Priesthood 


a missionary would be made far easier, many of his perplexities 
far more smoothly solved. But this at least is certain: that 
the loss by this or that community of Christians of the 
Catholic Ministry, in its historic form, has meant for 
Christendom not the Strength and freedom of a spiritual 
unity, but a most pitiful confusion and weakness: a tragedy 
of heresies and heartburnings, of crippled energies and divided 
counsels and conflicting aims. 

It is true that the Church of England has never committed 
its members to any particular theory of episcopal succession, 
nor formulated any particular theory of the grace mediated 
by non-episcopal Ministries; but at a Church Congress seven- 
teen years ago Bishop Gore said that on the day when any 
non-episcopally ordained Minister was formally allowed, with- 
in the Anglican communion, to celebrate the Eucharist, the 
Anglican communion would be rent in twain; and if we 
remember what the claim of that communion is: if we do 
not forget the Church of Rome and the Church of the East 
and the ground on which it can ever hope to meet them: if, 
in short, we realize what, in its reality and completeness, the 
reunion of Christendom must mean, we cannot doubt that 
what he said was true. 

3. The Priestly Life——And, lastly, what shall we say of 
the charge that our doctrine would lessen for the priest the 
sense of his personal obligation, or lower the standard de- 
manded of him in his moral and spiritual life? Here again 
I think our answer is clear. We do, indeed, hold that the un- 
worthiness of the Minister cannot hinder the effect of the 
Sacrament; for on no other principle could the Christian lay- 
man be assured that he shall receive the covenanted gifts of 
grace as God has promised and appointed them. On no other 
principle, indeed, would any man dare to accept the priestly 
office; for the worthiest would be the moét conscious of his 
unworthiness.* Neither do we deny that there are moral 
dangers and temptations which especially beset the Christian 


_ * The principle applies, of course, to the officers of a State no less 

than to those of a Church (cf. St. Paul, Rom. xiii. 1-6). Our Lord him- 
self applied it, in a Still closer parallel, to the Scribes and Pharisees 
(Matt. xxiii. 2, 3). 


137 


The Approach to the Presence 


minister—a kind of legalism and officiousness, a kind of 
arrogance, a kind of hardness and narrowness of mind; and 
if in every office and profession you may find a Bumble, he 
is doubtless least tolerable when found in the Ministry of 
the Church. But these vices are not confined to men who 
hold a particular doétrine of the sacraments, or banished merely ~ 
by rejecting it: the prophet or the preacher may contract 
them no less easily than the priest. And, indeed, the very 
height and boldness of the priest’s own claim—that his office 
is not from men but God, that its authority is not modified by 
his own virtues or his own defeéts, that Christ is the fount of | 
all his dignity, this in itself —symbolized and emphasized as it 
is by the official ritual and the official dress—must school him 
(more sternly the more Sstoutly he asserts it) to an ever-deepen- 
ing humility and self-distrust. 

And I do not think it doubtful that the march of the 
Catholic Movement in the English Church—the wider accept- 
ance of Catholic doétrine and Catholic order—has, in fact, 
not lowered but incalculably heightened, for the English 
Priesthood, the standard and ideal of the priestly life. It is 
no accident that more and more of the men who are ordained 
to the Sacred Ministry in our communion have set for them- 
selves a Sternly ordered life of discipline and devotion. Their 
rule of prayer and penance, their yearly period of Retreat, 
their daily Mass, their deliberate abjuring of marriage*— 
all this has not come by the formal teaching of Anglican 
seminaries, or the force of any Anglican convention; it has 


* I am not asserting either that the custom in this country of the 
priest’s daily Mass is, even for the Roman Priesthood, of more than 
comparatively recent origin, or that the aye Church was wrong to 
abrogate the rule of compulsory celibacy for its clergy. My point is 
merely that both these tendencies or instinéts spring, not from sacerdotal 
arrogance, but from a genuine eagerness to deepen devotion and grow 
in holiness. That eagerness would be praiseworthy, even if the particular 
form of its expression were undesirable. It may be noted also that there 
is a curious inconsistence between the suspicion shown by the older type 
of Protestantism of celibacy, monasticism, and similar Catholic expres- 
sions of other-worldliness, and its tolerance of a Puritan asceticism as 
expressed in a condemnation of dancing, play-going, and the use of 
fermented liquor. Ultimately the distinction is based on a prejudice 
rather than a principle. 


138 


Christian Priesthood 


come by the secret pressure and influence of a great idea— 
the Catholic idea of a divine commission, of a Priesthood 
moulded upon the pattern of the Priesthood of Christ him- 
self. Here, if nowhere else, in the society of our modern 
world, Noblesse oblige. Nowhere but here—in the Priest- 
hood conceived as the Catholic Church conceives it—may a 
man find lowliness so blended with a royal dignity, a pride 
so rooted in self-sacrifice, a life so humbling and so supremely 


happy. 





| 


‘The 
Meaning of the Presence 


I & 
Preparation for Communion 


By FRANCIS UNDERHILL 








ra ye Church of England lays down four 
~, Nee. points as necessary in preparation for 
5 ys; > receiving Holy Communion. 

5 “What is required of them who 
lod\ come to the Lord’s Supper?” 
pW “To examine themselves, whether 
Soll |\vo © )» they repent them truly of their former 
ee! Z ww RS a steadfastly purposing to lead a 
AS SED PH new life; have a lively faith in God’s 
mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his 
death; and be in charity with all men.’ 

It is all too plain that in twenty minutes I can do little 
more than suggest headings for thought on subje¢ts so vast as 
these, while dwelling in some slight detail on one or two 
matters of difficulty which arise. 


I. PENITENCE 


And first, Repentance. You will notice that the Catechism, 
in accordance with Christian tradition, puts this first among 
the requirements for a devout preparation for the Sacrament. 
“To examine themselves, whether they repent them of their 
former sins.” In this the Church is strongly supported both by 

140 


Preparation for Communion 


the Scriptures and by the rest of the Book of Common Prayer. 
The peculiar solemnity of the accounts of the institution of the 
Holy Communion, given to us by the Synoptists and St. Paul, 
make perfectly clear to us the importance attached by the 
Church from the first to the Sacrament, and the great peril of 
unworthy reception. But I need not press the general point of 
our duty to make the best possible repentance in preparation 
for our Communion. The question which must of necessity 
arise here in our day and circumstances is that of “ going to 
Confession,” as it is popularly expressed; more theologically, 
the use of the Sacrament of Penance. This matter has come 
to be one of the keenest controversies known to Christian 
history, especially in the Church of England. It is natural 
enough that it should be so; for the act of making one’s Con- 
fession is a supreme surrender of the individual will to the 
judgment of the Church. It is true that the controversy is 
clearing up. I think most people, at least most people whose 
thoughts are up-to-date, have abandoned the old-fashioned pre- 
judice against Confession in general. They consider that in 
some circumstances, at least, it is good and necessary. 

Two considerations arise here for members of the English 
Church. First, that the Prayer-Book, revised and unrevised, 
encourages in case of need private Confession in the presence 
of a priest; and, secondly, that it does not make it compulsory. 
There is no need to tell an Englishman that he is not com- 
pelled to “go to Confession”’; he knows that perfectly well. 
But surely this is not the real issue. Whether it is a good or a 
bad thing that Confession should be compulsory is an arguable 
point, which has, in fact, been endlessly argued. What a 
serious Christian who wishes to live the Catholic life in its 
fulness has to ask himself is not “ Must I go to Confession?” 
but, “Is it the Will of God for me that I should make this 
great surrender? Shall I in this way best find and express the 
penitence which will help to fit me for union with God?” 

There are three stages here. It may help us to deepen our 
penitence if we think of them a little carefully. There is in 
Confession the clearing of ourselves; the definite desire to 
cleanse the life of those elements which by defiling it make 
it unfit for union with God. In order that this clearing may 

141 


: 


The Meaning of the Presence 


be as complete as possible, we undergo the process known as 
“ Self-examination,” by which we face ourselves unflinchingly, 
that we may find out what in us is displeasing to God. This 
is followed by the aét of Confession. And here it is necessary 
to remind ourselves of an important fact. The large majority 
of Christians in the world to-day understand by the term Con- 
fession the telling out of our sins privately in the presence of 
the priest, who is at once the minister of God and the repre- 
sentative of the whole Church. There normally follows upon 
such Confession sacramental Absolution, conveyed as in the 
other sacraments by an outward sign—in this case the word 
spoken—to assure of our forgiveness, and our restoration to © 
the life of Grace. The validity of our forgiveness, however, 
depends upon our sincere intention to live better. But there 
is more than that. In Absolution strength is given by God, 
as we believe, to enable us, the past being put away, to amend 
our life as we purpose to do. Thus we are prepared by the 
deepest repentance of which we are capable, not only for a 
holier life, but for the supreme act of union with Christ. We 
are doubly fortified to go forward in confident resistance 
against the attacks of temptation, and in a sincere resolve to 
be more wholly devoted to God’s service and conformed to his 
Will. 


Il. Fasting CoMMUNION 


We must now pass on to another disciplinary aspect of our 
preparation for Holy Communion. The origin of Fasting 
Communion—that is, of receiving the Holy Sacrament as the 
first food of the day—is obscure; but it certainly goes back 
into the early ages of the Christian Church. It is very ancient, 
though it does not belong to the first days of all. It would 
appear to have arisen from a desire to safeguard the act of 
Communion and to surround it with the sense of quiet and 
the acceptance of self-denial. It has been observed for many 
centuries, and is Still observed to-day by the great majority of 
living Christians. It is recognized by a large and growing 
number of members of the Anglican Communion. 

The rule of Fasting Communion, as IJ have said, is ancient, 
widespread, and valuable; it has long commanded the obedi- 

142 


Preparation for Communion 


ence of the faithful in East and West; it deserves the most 
serious consideration of those who wish to live the Catholic 
life of obedience to authority. Salutary discipline is much to 
be desired in these days. We should surely wish to surround 
our Communion with every element which can make it for us 
the greatest moment in life. We are far too apt to seek in our 
religion the minimum of discipline combined with the maxi- 
mum of comfort. Here is a point at which in deference to the 
Church Catholic we can bring in something of the bracing 
air we need. There are too many young and healthy persons 
who “come late,” or take the comfortable and unnecessary 
cup of tea, who could and ought to come fasting. 

Yet we can never forget that there are people who by 
reason of weak health really cannot, for a time or permanently, 
go out in the early morning without some food. It is no 
answer to say to many of these persons that they can receive 
Communion at home; circumstances would make such recep- 
tion too infrequent. Still more difficult is the advice to make 
spiritual Communions. We must recognize that for many 
simple souls the idea of a spiritual Communion is one which 
is remote, and requires a height of apprehension which the 
cannot reach. Surely this is why our Lord instituted the Sacra- 
ment. 

Are we to say, then, that such persons must not receive 
Sacramental Communion, or must receive only very infre- 
quently? I cannot think so. Other parts of the Church have 
found it necessary to make provision for dispensation in certain 
circumstances from the Strict rule of Fasting Communion. We 
are bound to think out this matter corporately as Anglo- 
Catholics. Historically and ecclesiastically it is a knotty 
problem, and we would ask those who regard the whole 
question as a ridiculously small one to try to realize that there 
are persons who are conscientiously troubled by it. I do not 
suggest at the moment a solution of the problem; it is, in 
fact, to-day engaging the attention of Anglo-Catholic theolo- 
gians. It is time, however, that tender consciences were in some 
way relieved from what is to them a burden and a perplexity. 

I regret that it has been necessary to take up so much of 
my short time on these two matters. You will recognize, how- 


on, 


The Meaning of the Presence 


ever, that the circumStances of the day and the expectation 
both of Anglo-Catholics and of other members of the Church 
of England have made it inevitable that I should do so. 


III. Cuariry 


I am reversing the order of the last two requirements of 
the Church Catechism from those who come to the Lord’s 
Supper. We are to be “in charity with all men.” But of all 
the criticisms brought against communicants to-day by the 
general world, and indeed by ourselves, the most painful and 
disabling is that of uncharity. Its very painfulness is largely 
caused by the fact that we are unable to deny the large element 
of truth in the accusation. The phrase, “ How these Christians 
love one another,” was at first extorted admiringly from an 
unwilling pagan society. It has in process of time so passed 
into a bitter sarcasm that we have forgotten its different and 
happier birth! We are almost all of us guilty, and not least 
we of the clergy. Yet of all the common faults which beset 
us, it is much the least realized and deplored by those who 
fall into it. 

We shall be hearing presently of that union with man 
which is one of the foundations of the Eucharist. Would it be 

ossible for us to do better than to go home and make the 
strictest possible self-examination in regard to this matter? The 
outside world will only be attracted into our fellowship when 
the saying I quoted just now changes again from being a 
sarcasm levelled against us, and becomes once more a note of 
admiration. ‘‘ See how these communicants love one another!”’ 
would soon lead men to another saying: “Come, let us join 
a band of men and women whose hearts God has so certainly 
touched !” 


IV. Farr AND THANKFULNESS 


On the last point, of faith and thankfulness, we are again 
in some danger of misunderstanding one another in our 
English Church. Christians see things differently, even when 
they think of that “lively faith” which they express in their 
Communion. Well, we are Catholics, and we believe with all 


144. 


Preparation for Communion 


our hearts in the sublime truth of the Catholic doétrines of the 
Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Real Presence. But we also believe 
that he who comes to the Lord Christ in faith will in no wise 
be cast out. And we thank him with all our hearts that 
certain beautiful and familiar words belong to us all, whatever 
our form of do¢trine may be. We pray side by side “ that our 
sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls 
washed through his most Precious Blood, and that we may 
evermore dwell in him and he in us.” The supreme prayer 
belongs to us all. 

Let us draw near, then, in full assurance, having “a lively 
faith in God’s mercies through Christ, with a thankful remem- 
brance of his death.” Let us come to him for the strengthen- 
ing and refreshing of our souls, as penitent as we can be; 
taking upon ourselves the discipline he lays upon us whose 
yoke is easy and whose burden light. Let us come full of the 
sense of the love and the needs of our brethren. We live in per- 
plexing times; yet in days when there is an always growing 
desire for better understanding and closer unity. All this 
centres at the Table of the Lord. 

With such thoughts in our minds, thankfulness comes of it- 
self; thankfulness for that saving death of which every Mass 
and every aét of Communion are the continual remembrance; 
thankfulness for our union of love with our fellow-communi- 
cants at God’s Altar; thankfulness, above all, for the taking up 
of our poor life into the Divine Life; for our dwelling in him 
and he in us; thankfulness because our life is hid with Christ’s 
in God. 


The Meaning of the Presence 


se§ I] & 
Communion with Man 
By DUDLEY SYMON 


<< PEGE le — 8) HE Body of our Lord Jesus Chritt, 
aw é On yey which was given for thee, preserve 







Za thy sbody and soul unto everlasting 
C en in Z at life.”» You are kneeling at the altar 
a ss =) | Ss 4QW rails to be made a sharer in the Divine 
vr =< Life, to become sacramentally one 
<8 Sb} iee & — with Christ himself. “Beside you kneels 
We x another human being, known to you 
EQ SON e8 or unknown, to whom these same 
words are said, this same gift is given. ‘And outside, in the early 
hours of a Sunday morning, there is the great world of men, 
asleep or awaking to a new day, for the most part indifferent 
to what you are doing, remote and incurious. Or, perhaps, on 
some week-day you are receiving the Holy Sacrament at an 
early Mass, and through the doors of the church there comes 
already, subdued but unmistakable, the hum and clatter of the 
day’s labours. As you kneel there, the whole mighty system of 
industry, commerce, and labour is gathering its momentum, 
fed by the hands and brains, the bodies, minds, and souls of 
myriads of men and women, and roars to its appointed end 
when the lights of Street or house call men to their pleasure 
or their rest. 

How are we to relate these three: the communicant, his 
neighbour at his side, and the world around? What unseen 
bonds thrill and tighten between you and your fellow as you 
receive the holy gifts? With what revived and reasserted 
obligations towards your brother man do you leave the sacred 
Presence? To what fellowship are you thereby summoned with 
all men, for whom, equally with yourself, the Body is given 

146 





Communion with Man 


and the Blood outpoured? As you pass from the church, 
newly touched by the sacred fire from the altar, what mission 
to humanity is yours in virtue of the consecration and bene- 
diction you have received? 

The first Step in our consideration is all-important, and in 
this, fortunately, we are guided by the teaching of the Church. 
The act of communion, says theology, unites us to the sacred 
Humanity of our Lord. MyStically his perfeét Manhood en- 
velops ours. Our own human nature, incomplete, sinful, and 
weak is energized and illuminated by his. So by Holy Com- 
munion we are in the way of becoming—looked at from this 
angle—not mere pale imitations of Divinity, but more truly 
and more fully men. We approach the Complete Man—Christ 
himself. We approximate to human nature as God meant it to 
be, but as it cannot now be unless touched by the supernatural. 
God means each man to be a complete, unique, and beautiful 
expression of his Creative Mind; complete and beautiful we 
certainly are not, unique, as a rule, we would much rather not 
be; so the communion of Christ’s Body is to help us to fulness 
of life, beauty of character, and the development of the talents 
entrusted to us. In self-examination, instead of the stupid 
little questions we are sometimes invited to ask, we had much 
better accuse ourselves of narrowness of vision, culpable ignor- 
ances, ugly dispositions, and facile acceptance of the Standards 
of the herd in which we happen to live. 

But there is, of course, no quality or virtue that can be con- 
sidered purely self-regarding. At once, the reality of our com- 
munion finds the material for its testing and consolidation in | 
our relations with other people. Our conduét towards others, 
our attitude to our neighbour, are the direct judgment as to 
whether we have “discerned the Lord’s Body” or not. By 
virtue of the sacramental Presence we are Christ to the next 
person we meet. Whatever else the world expects, it does ex- 
pect what may be called the “neighbourly virtues” from the 
Christian communicant—sympathy, kindliness, good temper, 
and generosity—all those things that make and keep life 
tolerable. Man’s nature is social, and through Holy Com- 
munion there should be a heightening of all the qualities that 
form the basis of the social life. 


147 


The Meaning of the Presence 


Is this, then, the whole matter? It can hardly be denied 
that it does seem sufficient to many people; and considering 
the triumph involved in gradually overcoming a mean dis- 
position or a bad temper, I am far from wishing to depreciate 


it. But take the matter further. To think of the Holy Sacra- 


ment as merely or primarily a gift to the individual, which 
has its repercussions, as it were, in the individual’s relations 
to other individuals, is, surely, so one-sided as to be almost a 
travesty of the true faéts. It is a reflection in the Catholic 
sphere of that individualism which we all condemn when we 
find it among “ Bible-loving”’ Protestants, but not so readily 
when it busies itself with candles and incense. To avoid com- 
plications in matters of taxation, I read that nowadays several 
wealthy landowners have followed the intelligent example of 
the Duke of Plaza-Toro, and have turned themselves into 
limited liability companies; it would seem that to avoid com- 
plication in the spiritual sphere many Christians have also pro- 
pounded and practised a doétrine of “limited liability ”’ as 
regards the scope of the Holy Communion. God, however, is 
even less easily mocked than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

For the point is surely this. The Holy Communion—to- 
gether with all the other sacraments—presupposes a social 
organization of which it is the “ effectual sign ””—that is, a 
witness to something which itself it helps to create. It witnesses, 
that is to say, to the Catholic Church, the Body of Chri&t. 
It is the gift of the Church, which, as we know, guarantees 
and guards its validity. Given first in the community and 
fellowship of the Upper Room, it ever after bears the stamp 
of its social origin and purpose. And the Church gives it 
to us, not simply for our edification and growth, but for 
her own. Every communion is an act of allegiance to the 
divine community, a witness to the claims of the whole body 
upon its members, a constructive aét towards the extension of 
the Church’s realm, a “ geSture” of fellowship, a proclamation 
of belief in our need of and responsibility for one another 
in the Divine Family. This at once takes us further than a 
merely increased sense of duty to our “neighbour.” For the 
Church is the fellowship of all the baptized, it is potentially, 
if not actually, the whole human race, it transcends time and 


148 





ee ee 


Communion with Man 


place, its frontiers pass into eternity. Even where the effect 
of Holy Communion may seem to be most obviously private 
and personal, it is the Church that is the ultimate objective; 
even where, by virtue of my communion, I try to be more 
considerate, more patient, it is the Church, more clearly appre- 
hended, that speaks through me and reveals to others some- 
thing of the glory of that fellowship and the beauty and dignity 
of her moral laws. 

’ We cannot, therefore, in any intelligible sense consider the 
act of communion as affecting the individual apart from the 
whole Body of Christ.,The words of administration are indeed 
“individual” and personal, for the individual must, for one 
exalted moment, realize himself as the link in the chain, the 
soldier on whom for an instant his general’s eye is fixed, sum- 
moning him to the utmost of his loyalty and strength. Yet it 
is as soldiers that we take our “Sacramentum,” not as free- 
lances: men who are called to effort, discipline, and endurance 
on behalf of something greater than ourselves, apart from 
which we have no value or meaning, whose service is our own 
satisfaction and free and purposive life. 

And thus, through the Church, every communion points 
to our responsibilities on behalf of the Kingdom of God, the 
Divine Order of things, towards which we are to Struggle in 
the world of space and time, onward to that sphere where we 
believe it will be perfeétly realized. The Blessed Sacrament is 
an acceptance of Divine “value,” and of God’s purpose for 
mankind. Of Divine values—for where else do goodness, 
beauty, and truth receive so unqualified an affirmation? Put 
side by side with the Blessed Sacrament, the society of which 
we are a part and what it accepts as normal—the love of 
money, the passion for pleasure, the degradation of human 
life, the cynical demoralization of politics, the ugliness of 
industrialism, the vulgarity of wealth—it is almost meaning- 
less to talk of their being “ different ’—unless you think that 
word is adequate for contrasting heaven and hell. There are 
very few current standards or values in the world to-day which 
we are not pledged by our communion to oppose and destroy. 

Of God’s purpose for mankind—the « Freaking down of 
the partitions” between man and man, nation and nation, the 


149 


The Meaning of the Presence 


building of Christendom, the creation of social organizations 
that are sacramental expressions of Christian ethics, and at least 
a comity between the nations based on a common Faith. If 
Christianity is not purposive, nine-tenths of human life seems 
to be left without guidance and without a goal; if it is, then 
there is no point at which we can stop short of the complete 
World-Order of the Kingdom of God. 

And of this redemption, consecration, and re-ordering of 
human life, the Blessed Sacrament is the most perfect symbol 
that can be conceived. For the bread and wine, the expression 
of all man’s achievements and his joy in them, become the 
Body and Blood of Christ. Things natural, accepted, ordinary, 
while not withdrawn from their own sphere, are not allowed 
to find their sole meaning and value there; they become modes 
by which we realize the supernatural, the Divine. Seen in that 
light, there is nothing in your life or my life or the life of the 
body politic that is not Eucharistic—raw material whose fulfil- 
ment is transubstantiation into the fabric of the Kingdom of 
God. This is our proper activity, not merely as individuals, 
but in and through the Church. 

For just as you cannot isolate the individual from the 
Church, so the Church cannot exist in a kind of vacuum, self- - 
contained and self-regarding. Her creative activity, the activity 
of love, must seize on the vast material of human life to 
mould and fashion it in accordance with herself. Love is 
creative, and the Church’s task is neither to ignore, nor to seek 
to control, but to “‘ recreate’”’ the world. 

“In the Gospels,” says a modern writer, “the Kingdom is 
inseparable from the Church, and the Church is integrated 
into the very Structure of the Kingdom. The Church is the 
sacrament of the Kingdom and the sacraments of the Church 
are sacraments of the Kingdom. The business of the Church 
is to train the citizens of the Kingdom, to develop in men 
Kingdom-capacity and to exorcise the evil spirit which enslaves 
human society. It cannot allow its members to treat it as an 
end in itself—to find their satisfaction in its services, sacraments 
and institutional interests. It is to be the generating Station of 
those sacrificial powers which can redeem human life and lift 
the secular on to the spiritual plane.’’, 

150 








Communion with Man 


So the aét of communion involves us in a threefold rela- 
tionship with our fellow-man. First, by an immediate 
deepening of the Christ-life within us, it helps to destroy all 
that is fundamentally anti-social and unneighbourly in our per- 
sonalities and to strengthen all those characteristics that make 
for unity, fellowship, and friendliness among men. Secondly, 
it is a creative act within the fellowship of the Church, build- 
ing up the fulness of the stature of Christ, binding us to special 
responsibilities towards those who are of the household of 
faith, linking us myStically with the whole Church, militant, 
expectant, triumphant, and attaching to that fellowship the 
Strongest obligations of service and mutual aid. Thirdly, since 
the Holy Sacrament is the Shrine of every value, human and 
divine, it is an acceptance of the Will and Purpose of God for 
the whole life of man, spiritual and material, in time as well 
as in eternity; it commits us to the quest of the Kingdom of 
God, it compels us to examine, and, if need be, challenge the 
institutions of the society in which we live; it summons us to 
enter into the whole life of men, not as those who would 
dominate and rule, but as those who would serve their genera- 
tion and win them as fellow-workers towards the supreme end 
of man. 

“The Word was made Flesh.” The mystery of the In- 
carnation is the mystery of the Mass also. He took our nature 
upon him; so we, in communion with that same Divine Man- 
hood, are made one with humanity. We, who receive the 
Blessed Sacrament, are not only men but man; we take upon 
ourselves, even as he did, the joys and sorrows of the human 
race; we are his Body, and that Body is ever for the service of 
others, never for its own private needs. The Divine Presence in 
our souls is no private possession, but, as with him, an irradia- 
tion that warms and comforts and inspires our brethren. 
“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto” (“I am a 
man, I deem nothing that concerns mankind foreign to me”’), 
said the Roman in the play of Terence, rising to a noble height 
both of eloquence and dignity. With what fervour ought we 
to re-echo these words, we whose manhood has been glorified, 
not by a cold Stoic Pantheism, but by the in-dwelling of the 
very Incarnate God! 


151 


The Meaning of the Presence 


It was, without any doubt, the inspiration of the Blessed 
Sacrament that during the last two or three generations pro- 
duced the great mission priests of the English Church and the 
bands of faithful laity who supported them. “ Much cheered 
with thoughts of Christ, the Living Bread,” our Dollings, 
Stantons, Pollocks, Richard Wilsons won their way into the 
hearts of men, received love in return for love, revealed to 
many the beauty of fellowship and brought comfort and con- 
solation to souls in darkness and cruel habitations. The need 
for priests such as these has not ceased, will perhaps never 
cease. The comfortless sighing of the poor, in their mean and | 
dismal dwellings, still challenges our complacency and 
summons our service. Still we must hear the voice of the 
“Lover of souls” who calls men to that personal self-sacri- 
ficing work in obscure parishes, which is the heart of this 
movement. Still we must thrill to the prophetic words of the 
late Bishop of Zanzibar, who bade us seek the “naked and 
hungry Christ in the slum” and pray that every generation 
of priests and laity may find those who will respond. 

Yet, as we gaze at and consider the human scene and the 
needs of the world, some of us, I think, are conscious that, 
with all its greatness and nobility, this ideal of the past does 
not exactly coincide with the angle of our vision to-day. It is 
not that the older appeal has become obsolete, Still less that it 
has been proved false, but that it has to be fitted into a new 
setting, a fresh eStimation of the man’s needs, and that in this 
adjustment its proportions are somehow changed. For one 
thing, it has become impossible to think that one section of 
the community more than another needs the fellowship and 
inspiration of the Holy Sacrament. The rich need it, and 
need it sorely, that they may be helped to acquire a true sense 
of values in material things and break down the barriers that 
wealth creates between man and man; the middle classes need 
it that they may be set free from. the bonds of their besetting 
sins of convyentionality, insularity, and snobbery; the Public 
Schools need it (how they need it!) that in place of their 
“ muffled Christianity’ (as Mr. Wells calls it) they may know 
the power of the supernatural and the glory of him “ qui 
letificat inventutem meam.”’ 

152 


Communion with Man 


But, above all, it is the revived and newly interpreted thought 
of the Kingdom of God that has altered our point of view, 
widened and deepened it. The enthusiasm for humanity, whose 
motive power lies in the love of Christ, for us set forth and em- 
bodied in the Holy Sacrament, has in our modern times found 
fresh means of expression and opportunities for its realization. 
The vision of the past was that of Strong centres of sacra- 
mental life in the wilderness of our induStrialized civilization, 
Storehouses of humanity, brotherliness and virtuous living in 
a world in which these things were often sadly lacking; or of 
a Church, reinvigorated by Catholic truth and worship, uphold- 
ing these same qualities before society. Some men, indeed, 
went farther. They asked themselves whether the system that 
produced the slums, the unemployment, the bad housing, the 
wretched deStitution, the degradation and impoverishment of 
life and all the other evils they deplored, could be itself 
arraigned before the Christian conscience and judged by 
Catholic Standards. They found it intolerable to be expected 
to accept the position of the ambulance corps of industrialism, 
mitigating as far as they could its worst evils, or, more de- 
grading still, acting as moral policemen, inculcating patience 
and submission to the unhappy victims of Mammon. 
“Religion,” says one of the Revd. Elmer Gantry’s deacons, 
“is a fine thing to keep people in order. They think of 
higher things instead of all these Strikes and big wages and 
the kind of hell-raising that’s throwing the industrial system 
all out of kitter.”” These men had not so learned the Faith. 
They saw industrialism not as something indifferent, but based 
on the exploitation of many of the worst human passions; not 
as eternally existing, but cradled in the breakdown of the 
medieval synthesis and the foster-child of Protestantism; not 
as exempt from religious judgment because concerned with 
economics, but Standing at its bar as outraging human per- 
sonality, destroying liberty and making the Gospel of Christ 
of none effect. 

So there arose those great prophets of the Christian-social 
movement—Stewart Headlam, Shuttleworth, Marson, Scott 
Holland, to name only those who are no longer with us—men 
whom this Congress should be proud to honour, men who in 


13 


The Meaning of the Presence 


the face of prejudice, obscurantism, and malice, descended from 
their altars to witness for social righteousness. Some of their 
followers may be criticized—as who may not be?—for accept- 
ing too readily current economic remedies, for too much will- 


ingness to ally the Church with secular forces. But the spiritual _ 


and intellectual insight of these men remains as one of the 
great glories of their time and of the Catholic revival in our 
land. 

And the heart of their vision was this: the Church must 
return into the sphere of politics and economics from which 


it has withdrawn for over two hundred years. It must return, - 


for two centuries of secularized politics and materialistic 
economics have brought the world to the verge of disaster. 
It must return, for religion, cribbed, cabined, and confined in 
narrow bounds, fenced and warned off from great tracts of 
human life, has itself become sickly, anemic, and self-centred. 
It must return. But how? Not in alliance with any party or 
any secular policy, Still less as the tool of any, but as an inde- 
pendent force, developing and appealing to its own specific 
principles, seeking to understand the implications of its dog- 
matic theology and moral standards, drawing its inspiration 
and enlightenment from its sacramental life and worship. This 
is a far bigger and more august conception of our duty than 
any before. For it means the revival of the idea of the unity 
of life with a religious basis, of a Christian Commonwealth in 
which the Church is not a society but the society and the very 
soul of the whole social order as the sacramental expression of 
the Will of God revealed to men in the Body of Christ. 
Nothing less than this can be an adequate answer from the 
Church to the need of the world to be saved from itself and 
the calamitous yet glorious responsibilities with which we are 
faced to-day. 

If greater, more august and glorious—then infinitely more 
difficult and completely dependent on the might of the Holy 
Spirit. No paper scheme can be drawn up to present in detail 
the Will of God for the social life of man in this or in any 
generation. Just as after the chaos of the Dark Ages, centuries 
went to build up the great Structure of medieval Christendom, 
so centuries may have to pass before we shall achieve a fresh 


154 


ee 


Ee eg ee ee ee ee 


priors eee ee 


Communion with Man 


synthesis. But let us realize at least that it is to this task that 
God is calling us, to be pioneers, however humble, in the great 
reconstruction of Christendom. 

Have I seemed in all this to be straying from my subject, to 
be losing sight of the theme of the Blessed Sacrament and 
Man? I hope not. For surely what we are all learning is this: 
that life cannot be unified, cannot be refashioned so to allow full 
play to fellowship and co-operation, except on a supernatural 
foundation. That supernatural foundation is the Church, which, 
according to Catholic philosophy, is not, in its true being, an 
incidental organization, but the soul of the world, the instru- 
ment of the Kingdom of God, the conscience, heart, and will 
of the Empire of Man. And at the centre of that supernatural 
power, in the shrine where the eternal fires blaze upon the 
altar, is the abiding mystery of the God made Man, of the 
divine power that makes all things new, and of the voice 
that says of common bread “This is my Body.” It is from 
that experience that the new revolution must spring, the ex- 
perience of those who have found the Body of Christ in the 
Holy Bread of the Mass and thence have had the vision of 
the world itself as the Host ever consecrated anew on the 
High Altar of Heaven; who, in Communion with the Lover 
of men, have thereby passed into a new solidarity with their 
brothers; who, through their offering of the Divine Sacrifice, 
have, however dimly, learned that no fellowship among men is 
possible apart from the sacrifice of self for the good of others.” 
Let this Eucharistic Congress bring home to us that every 
time we dare to receive that Holy Food we are committing 
ourselves to tremendous affirmations, we are accepting a cer- 
tain kind and quality of life, we are declaring that there is 
no human a¢tivity that has not to be recaptured and reformed 
in accordance with the verities therein disclosed. Let our task 
begin with the Household of Faith. The Church here in 
England is our heritage and appointed instrument for the work 
of the Kingdom. May we so accept our service, not grudgingly, 
but with passionate loyalty, that every altar may be a dynamic 
force, every Communion a creative act for the coming of the 
new Christian Commonwealth—the gift that God awaits our 
response to bestow. 


155 


The Meaning of the Presence 


3 Ill & 


Communion with God 


By C. P. HANKEY 


eV SANZ, oad ZOE OMMUNION with God is the goal 
2 ay FAB ve towards which any religion that can » 
) 1b eAass claim respectful attention directs its 
HOF [TNA @BDbpy followers. A religion that could not 








2 (Ac ®S hold out a reasonable hope of such 

AV \\ ve s ‘} communion would have small chance 
{Xo \ “wa\\ of receiving the continued allegiance of 
WSs NESTS thoughtful people. No doétrine of im- 


only if it includes both the Beatific Vision of God and some 
kind of communion with him. 

The means by which mankind has sought to achieve this 
communion have varied because men vary in their idea of 
what it is which principally prevents their union with God. 
We shall have to consider, then, what exactly it is which we, 
as Christians, believe separates us from God, and the means 
which we believe that Christ has provided for doing away 
with this obstruction. But before we do this it will be useful 
to consider briefly what those people who have not received 
his revelation have felt about the’ matter, as this may help 
us to distinguish more clearly the nature of his revelation. 

Looking back over the history of religion, and observing 
the means by which men have sought to attain this end, we 
find, in the first place, a class of bizarre practices, through 
the use of which, it is claimed, men have drawn near to 
God. We find men dancing, for instance, in a frenzied, der- 
vish-like way; we see them using outlandish music or the 
rhythmical repetition of movements of the body, arms or 
legs, and so forth. There are examples of such things in the 


156 


Communion with God 
pages of the Old Testament, and they may be discovered 


to-day among certain rather unusual Christian communities. 
Such behaviour seems to us absurd in view of its high pur- 
pose, but it is really the natural outcome of a theory as to 
what specific thing it is which separates man from God. For 
the theory on which these people are working is that the gulf 
which separates man from God is primarily the gulf between 
the finite and the infinite, between finite man and infinite God. 
If that gulf is to be crossed it appears to them evident that 
somehow man must escape from his mind and his body; for it 
is these which appear to hold the spirit of man to this earth. 
By these barbarous methods you can get into a condition in 
which you lose all sense of the limitations of finite existence 
—into a State of ecstasy. Then your freed spirit can commune 
with its Maker. 

There are other beliefs about this subject of a very different 
kind. We find those who hold that the limitations imposed 
by everyday life constitute no bar to intercourse with God. 
God and man can enter into fellowship, no matter what the 
dispositions of the latter may be. Man has not to bother about 
his moral condition, or his psychological State, for he can use 
a magic which will bring God into communion with him. In 
this case man is not seeking to hitch his waggon to the star 
of the infinite, but to obtain protection and strength for the 
living of his life on earth. God is power, and through com- 
munion with him man can get power to contend with his 
enemies, material and spiritual. 

I have not mentioned these ideas only that they may be 
set in contrast with the Christian belief. In both of these there 
are elements which have a place within the Christian teaching 
on this subject. For there is a lifting up of the heart to God 
in prayer, which is an attempt to bridge the gulf which 
separates finite man from infinite God. There is also some- 
thing that corresponds with the belief that somehow the power 
which lies in God can reach man, even though he be so unruly 
and the prey of such odd illusions. There is a divine invasion, 
a Strength which comes to us from without, and its coming 
does not depend upon ecstatic conditions. But these ideas are 
Strangely transmuted in the teaching of Christ. The impetus 


157 


The Meaning of the Presence 


to seek communion with God does not arise in Christians be- 
cause they are oppressed by the sense of the limitations under 
which they live on this earth, since our Lord himself submitted 
to them. Nor is it the desire for power which Stimulates them, 
because, again, Christ came among them “as he that doth 
serve.” 

What is it then which distinguishes the Christian belief 
from others? 

First of all, we observe that it begins quite differently. We 
have just seen how those others have begun by emphasizing 
the unlikeness of God to man. The Christian begins by em- 
phasizing their “keness—that is to say, he begins with the 
memory that man was created in the divine image. If there 
is to be communion between them it must be on the basis 
of that likeness, for such intercourse can only be between like 
and like. You cannot know a person with whom you have 
nothing in common. His next thought is: “ But that divine 
image was lost by man, or largely lost, through his deliberate 
sin.” The gulf, then, which must be bridged for the reStora- 
tion of this communion is not so much that between the finite 
and the infinite, as between that which is and that which ought 
to be—in faét, that which lies between sinful man on the one 
hand and Holy God on the other. It is primarily because of the 
consciousness of corporate and individual sin that communion 
with God seems to the Christian an unattainable wonder. He 
Stands like Alice in Wonderland looking into a garden he 
cannot enter. How could communion ever be thought of with- 
out lowering one’s conception of God? If such a thing is 
really possible, either the prophetic conception of God’s holi- 
ness is surely wrong, or else man is more capable of a radical 
moral change than his history suggests. 

Such are the alternatives which confront us as we close the 
Old Testament. And when we open the New, that dilemma 
might seem at first sight to have become more pronounced 
than ever. For if the death of Jesus is the price of sin, God’s 
holiness must be even more awful than the prophets perceived 
it to be.” But the New Testament does not merely deepen that 
impression of God’s holiness which we inherit from the Old. 
That very death of Jesus taught us something further about 

158 


Communion with God 


God which we could not otherwise have believed, for he 
died not only as a man does, for his friends, but as God does, 
for his enemies. We learn, in fa¢t, that God is more than holi- 
ness—that his nature is expressed most richly and deeply by 
the word “love.” And we learn further that this inmost nature 
of God has received concrete expression in “the one mediator 
between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave 
himself a ransom for all.” 

And here we come to the great wonder of the Christian 
faith, the source of our hope that human beings may have 
communion with Deity. Christ Jesus, “ himself man,” holds 
perfect communion with the Father. On the Cross God and 
man are absolutely at one. The conditions are at last fulfilled, 
for like is holding communion with like. The divine image 
is expressed as perfectly as it can be on Calvary, and the 
Christian faith really begins with this accord between the 
Mind of Christ on the Cross and the Heavenly Father. The 
thing is possible then; but what about ourselves? Can we, 
in whom that divine image has, to say the least, been smudged, 
can we have what Jesus had? That, too, is possible through 
Christ’s redeeming act. If, by the power of that act and the 
Strength which the love of that act engenders, we share the 
Mind of Christ, we may attain, through union with him, what 
he attained. But we must be endeavouring to share the 
thoughts of that Mind towards the Father, towards the 
brethren and towards ourselves; we must be hating sin and 
loving righteousness, for like can only hold communion with 

J like. 

It is not our business here to show how man may come 
to perceive within himself the fruits of Christ’s redemption 
through such individual aéts as penitence and prayer and 
adoration. Such means must be imperfect by themselves just 
because they are individual aéts, whereas we are, in his Mind, 
a family. As a family, a race, a people, our means of union 
with God mutt be a social aét—mutt be, in fact, that rite the 
first purpose of which is the continual remembrance of the 
death of his Son. The Eucharist would be for this purpose 
efficacious, even though it were a rite unauthorized by Christ, 
and bare, since its object is that remembrance. Offered with 


159 


The Meaning of the Presence 


that terribly serious intention, it would be a true vehicle of 
communion with the Mind of Christ, which is to say a com- 
munion with God. It is not, however, a bare rite, but a service 
with a promise. The Eucharist is an integral part of that 
sacrifice which the Son offered on the Cross; it is that by the 
Will of Christ himself: “Take, eat,’ he said, “this is my 
Body.” We can no more separate the Mass from the sacrifice 
on Calvary than we can separate the institution of the rite on 
Maundy Thursday from the Altar of the Cross on Good Friday. 

Now, this supreme a¢ct of worship is the confession by the 
Christian family, first, of God’s holiness, and, second, of the 
awfulness of sin—just those two facts which we have seen rise 
before the consciousness of our family when it seeks com- 
munion with God. So far are we from seeking that com- 
munion, by forgetting or glossing over the uncomfortable 
reality of sin, that the very rite itself which Christ provided 
is a public recognition of our acknowledgment of it, since 
nothing less than the death of the Son of God could avail for 
its overthrowing. But also in this holy sacrifice we are taught 
how that which separates can be done away, because in it God 
is set forth as Self-giving, and we are allowed to partake of 
that which he gives in the new life which comes from his 
death, to drink of “the fountain opened to the house of David 
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for unclean- 
ness.” These unruly subjects of God are allowed to unite 
themselves with that offering on the Cross, which is the Mind 
of Christ, the human likeness of God. 

Communion with God! That must be the greatest of 
human experiences, and it is nothing less than this that 
happens when we receive Holy Communion. But when we 
approach that sacrament, whatever may be the joy we experi- 
ence, it falls short of the wonder which the words “‘ com- 
munion with God” would surely lead us to expeét. We have 
been taught only that our communions must be made with 
devotion; why were we not also taught that they should be 
made with ecstasy? For the very simple reason that a dis- 
cipline of preparation for communion which would ensure 
such ecstasy would need to be a discipline which severed soul 
and body—a discipline which would free our spirits from the 

160 


Communion with God 


trammels of earthly existence. Remember, therefore, the 
words which are said as we partake of that holy food: “ The 
Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee 
preserve thy Jody and soul unto everlasting life.” It is our 
whole person, body and soul, which is to be brought within 
the sphere of redemption, not the spirit only. Our mental and 
physical condition is bound to play an important part in this 
experience. It is for this reason that those who receive Holy 
Communion with very little sensible devotion, feeling far 
colder than they would wish about it, may yet be drawing 
near with greater profit to their souls than those whose experi- 
ence appears more thrilling. The former may be trying to 
bring the whole of their lives with all their crippling dis- 
abilities; the latter may be cutting their life in two and offering 
only that part of it which we call spirit, an at which may be 
unaccompanied by any moral effort. It is “ ourselves, our souls 
and bodies” to which the promise has been given, and it is 
ourselves, our souls and bodies which we pray may some time 
enter into rapt communion with their Maker and Redeemer. 

‘If we approach this aét with self-forgetful minds we shall 
not be seeking ecstasy therein, but a moral change to the like- 
ness of Christ through his redeeming power. We discover, 
then, that there are no easy consolations to be had through 
Holy Communion, for the deeper our experience of it the 
greater we find the call upon our fortitude, since in that life 
which gives access to God there is pain. The Body was broken 
and the Blood was shed for the remission of sins. It is a 
communion with God through receiving that which, by Christ’s 
own will and act, conveys himself to us, not as he lived once 
in Galilee, but as he is and was and ever will be, the Lamb 
slain before the foundation of the world. » 


M 161 


The Reserved Sacrament 


1 & 
Its Use for Communion 


By H. F. B. MACKAY 


20837 HAVE been asked to deal with a 
wy, small practical point in connection 
: Sa? with the subject of the Fioly 
pa Eucharist. The title of my paper is 
avd \ “The Reserved Sacrament: Its Use 
; for Communion.” 
ye’ You have been reminded again 
<efge, during the Congress that the Eucharist 
{ By has always been regarded as the 
central Chriftian occasion, and that the occasion has always 
been held to produce a power to be exercised Godward and 
Manward, and that this power has always been held to under- 
lie the sacramental elements after consecration, and to remain 
effective for its purpose so long as the Sacrament is reserved 
for practical reasons. 

We connect our Communions so simply with the scene in 
the Upper Chamber that we are apt to forget that our Lord’s 
followers, if left to themselves, might have interpreted the 
significance of that scene in other ways. 

Granted that our Lord commanded the perpetuation of 
the scene, since the occasion was a secret one with only his 
principal followers present, it might have been regarded as 
an esoteric rite reserved for the highest initiates, and to be 
celebrated only on rare occasions of great significance. Such 
an interpretation would no doubt have involved the repro- 
duétion in detail as close as possible of the original scene; 

162 














a 
a 


Its Use for Communion 


throughout the centuries the initiates would have reclined 
about a supper-table in an upper room. 

The Apostles understood the Eucharist differently. They 
connected it direétly with the ministries to the bodies and souls 
of men in which they had assisted our Lord while he was on 
earth; they connected it direétly with such a scene as the 
feeding of the five thousand; they connected it with the gifts 
described in the sixth chapter of St. John; they regarded it as 
intended to be the central occasion, the supreme act, and the 
highest gift bestowed, in the life of every baptized person. 

All through the history of Communion you will find that 
the matter of greatest importance was held to be the widest 
possible extension of the opportunities of Communion, and 
for this reason the necessary symbolism was narrowed as far 
as possible. The history of Holy Communion is indeed the 
history of five of the commonest objeéts—a table, a plate, a 
cup—bread on the plate, wine in the cup—and a man who 
can produce proofs that he has received our Lord’s com- 
mission and power to give these objects the significance with 
which our Lord has invested them. 

Since the Apostolic Church attributed supreme significance 
to the Eucharist, it is natural that it was chiefly concerned 
to guard its central position in the Christian life, and to think 
of it as the centre and source of Christian unity. Occasional 
and clinical celebrations of the Eucharist for the benefit of 
private persons would not, therefore, form part of the earliest 
Christian conception of it. 

In the earliest Church of Jerusalem we see the Christians 
coming together every day for the breaking of the Bread and 
for the Prayers, sharing the Lord’s Body, and with it sharing all 
else they possessed. 

Almost at the same time we see the Gentile Christians 
gathering in their cities round the same table once a week at 
night-time or in the early morning with a discipline and 
a ceremony which their antecedents and circumstances 
demanded. A century later the Church has grown and 
spread; it is a time of persecution, and large gatherings of 
Christians are dangerous; but the Eucharist remains the centre 
to which all faithful Christians congregate, and to those un- 

163 


The Reserved Sacrament 


avoidably absent the deacons carry the Sacrament, that they 
may be counted as present. 

The piéture thus presented should be retained in the mind 
because it is typical—the one altar, the one priest, the whole 


body of the faithful, all communicating, and the ministers - 


going out this way and that into the neighbourhood to 
administer the Blessed Sacrament to those unable to be present 
and to the infirm. 

All use of the reserved Sacrament for Communion is a 
further expansion from practical necessity of this conception. 


It is a reaching-out from the altar to draw the absent into the 


unity of its life. 

It is clear that this idyllic picture sketched for us by Justin 
Martyr can only be realized under certain favourable circum- 
stances; it is only possible when the congregation is moderate 
sized and its members live within easy distance of the central 
meeting-place. The extension of the Church and the rigour 
of the persecutions soon made the official distribution of the 
elements throughout the neighbourhood at the time of cele- 
bration unmanageable. 

Under these circumstances the Church might have said: 
“We can Stretch the essential symbolism of unity in the one 
Bread no further, and those who cannot now be present at 
the Liturgy must go without Communion.” But she took an 
opposite and an exceedingly daring line: she gave trusted 
lay-people the Sacrament to reserve in their homes, that they 
might communicate themselves. 

This custom was not merely an expedient resorted to when 
public persecution became acute; the personal difficulties of 
Christians whose relations were mostly pagans were often 
great. They were often forbidden to attend the Christian 
assembly. So generous was the Church in her care for such 
that she entrusted them with the Sacrament, to be hidden 
away in safety and received secretly. 

And when persecution ceased and private difficulties abated, 
the custom of private reservation did not at once die away. 

During the persecutions the Christian desire for Com- 
munion greatly increased. Our Lord would seem to have 
manifested himself with personal tenderness in the Com- 

164 


Its Use for Communion 


munions of the persecuted, giving them a foretaste of the 
beatitude of the Kingdom of Heaven, and a desire for frequent 
and even daily Communion grew strong. But at this period 
the Liturgy was not celebrated on every day in the week; on 
certain days celebrations were prohibited (as they are to-day 
in the East on certain days in Lent, on some of which the Rite 
of the Presanétified is used—as they are to-day on the 
Fridays in Lent in the Archdiocese of Milan, and all over 
the West on Good Friday). The difficulty was met by priests 
giving people supplies of the Blessed Sacrament for clinical 
Communion, for which purpose it was reserved in their 
oratories in a vessel of dignity. St. Basil, in the fourth 
century, defends this practice as legitimate, and says that the 
symbolic unity of the Eucharist was Still sufficiently preserved, 
since the Sacrament so received was always a far-flung gift 
from one altar, distributed originally by one hand. 

But the supreme example of the Church’s readiness to put 
practical considerations before symbolism in her treatment of 
the Eucharist is the fact that during the early ages the Sacra- 
ment distributed for the purpose of reservation and private 
Communion was in the species of bread only, and that the 
Communion of infants—the general practice of those days— 
was in the species of wine only. The reason for the general 
practice of reserving under the species of bread only was the 
practical impossibility of reserving the chalice. We do not 
know whether the deacons who distributed from the Liturgy 
to the absent, communicating them at the time, brought the 
chalice, but it is thought probable that they did not; the 
Sacrament had to be carried in those dangerous times with 
secrecy. Christians had even been denounced to the authorities 
by deteéting the odour of wine in their breath in the early 
morning. When Tarcisius the Acolyte, in the third century, 
was martyred while carrying the Sacrament, his murderers 
searched his dead body and found nothing. He had no vessel 
with him, and apparently had consumed the Host, which he 
may have been carrying in a fold of linen. In this practice of 
private reservation, so far as we know, the Host only was 
reserved; in the case of religious communities living in the 
desert without a priest, a supply of Hosts was given into the 

165 


The Reserved Sacrament 


charge of the head of the monastery, who communicated the 
brethren. 

Occasionally in cases of mortal sickness, where the circum- 
Stances permitted, as in religious houses and in the houses 
of great personages, Mass was said and the Sacrament carried _ 
in both kinds to the dying patient. This method seems to 
have been regarded as an honorific way of treating the dying 
person. But there was no thought that Communion in one 
kind was a defeétive Communion. 

A thousand years before St. Thomas wrote the “Lauda 
Sion” the Church in her practice was saying : | 


“Wine is poured and bread is broken, 
But in either sacred token 
Christ entire we know to be.” 


That is to say, what was known later as the doétrine of 
concomitance was always implicit in the usage of the Church. 

As you survey the history of the Eucharist you are conscious 
—more vividly, perhaps, than in any other department of 
theology—of a Power behind the theologians, the liturgies, 
and the prayers, devotions and religious conceptions of the 
people, tenderly leading them further into an understanding 
of the relation of our Lord to his children. 

The practice of private reservation had grown up in heroic 
days, days of persecution, days of pure religion, days in which 
Communion was ardently desired and when martyrdom was 
thinning the ranks of the priests. In the laxer days which 
followed, when the quality of Christians had been lowered 
by the influx of multitudes, and the desire for Communion 
had waned, the practice of private reservation became liable 
to abuse, owing to the remnants of pagan ideas in the minds 
of the people. But there was no sudden and decisive action 
of the Church to suppress it. Official control of reservation 
was gradually gained. It was left in the hands of the priests, 
who continued to reserve on the old lines. Gradually inquiries 
begin to appear as to whether the priests were doing their 
duty in the matter. We hear of the Celtic clergy carrying the 
reserved Sacrament about with them as part of their ordinary 
equipment, in order that they might be able to give Com- 

166 


Its Use for Communion 


munion to persons who were desirous of it, a custom revived 
in the twentieth century by some chaplains in the Great War. 

Official reservation continued to be in one kind. 

But in the tenth century the practice of intinéting the 
Host with some drops of the chalice became a widely spread 
custom. For some time people were communicated in this 
way in the Liturgy, and the custom spread to the Communion 
of the sick. 

It disappeared before long in the West, being violently 
reprobated in some places, partly for the foolish reason that 
it suggested the sop of Judas. It is considered to have been 
the fa Step in the WeSt to the withdrawal of the chalice 
from the laity. The East adhered to it, and it unfortunately 
became a point of difference between East and West. 

The custom of intinétion, I say, disappeared before long 
in the WeSt, but survives in the East. Easterns are communi- 
cated with the mingled species at Mass, and for sick Com- 
munion a holy loaf is signed with the Precious Blood, which 
is then dried upon it by the application of heat; the loaf 
thus artificially prepared is broken up into fragments, which 
are reserved throughout the year. It will be noticed that in 
this process the element of wine disappears, so that the 
Communion of the sick in the East is really Communion in 
one kind. The Sacrament is also freshly mingled and re- 
served for the Communion in the Rite of the Presané¢tified. 
I gather that in the East the Communion of the sick 
is practically confined to those im extremis, and that our 
ministry of carrying the Sacrament to those confined to bed 
in various degrees of illness is not customary. In the matter 
of the reservation of the Sacrament the methods of East and 
West have come to differ in other important particulars. 

An Eastern church is partitioned into two parts, correspond- 
ing, we may say, to the Earthlies and the Heavenlies. The 
Blessed Sacrament is reserved on the holy table in the 
Heavenlies, and is thus shut off from the cognizance of the 
people. In the West our churches are not solidly partitioned 
into two parts, and the Blessed Sacrament, the Fountain of 
Communion, necessarily the most sacred point in the build- 
ing, is always in front of the people. 

167 


The Reserved Sacrament 


In old days it was usually reserved in this country either 
in a pyx hanging over the high altar, or in a safe called an 
aumbry, in the north wall of the sanctuary. In later times 
in the West the pyx came down, so to speak, on to the altar, 
was nailed upon it, and became a tabernacle. Of these various 
plans, the tabernacle seems best to combine dignity and 
practical convenience, and brings the reserved Sacrament into 
that direét and obvious relation to Communion which we 
should always desire to emphasize. 

But there must have been a great symbolic beauty in the 
arrangement of an old English church, its many chapels, 
shrines, and chantries witnessing to many aspects and moods 
of the Christian life, and in the centre the Holy Sacrament, 
as it were, hovering above and brooding over the whole scene 
in a ceaseless ministry of love to the needy and the dying. 

The interest of this subject for us to-day lies in the fac 
that the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament has been restored 
amongst us, and the rest of my paper is concerned with 
practical considerations arising out of the historical sketch I 
have given you. 

In the Church’s provision for Holy Communion her chief 
aim has always been practical convenience combined with 
decency and order, and in all modifications of practice practical 
convenience has led the way. We must take that as an axiom. 
First, you have already noticed that the Communion of sick 
and dying persons is only a very small part of my subject. 

Before reservation was restored amongst us the cases of the 
most poignant need were naturally those of sick and dying 
persons. When the desire for Communion began to rise to 
the normal Christian level through the Catholic Revival, the 
absence of provision for the Communion of the sick was 
bitterly felt, and reservation for the sick became the cry. Years 
have rolled on, and the desire for Communion has risen Still 
higher, and has brought with it the demand for the normal 
Christian facilities for Communion to meet all needs and 
circumstances. ! 

I will speak first of the Communion of the sick and dying. 

There is, I think, no intrinsic objeétion of importance to 
the celebration of Mass in a sick-room, if under certain 


168 


Its Use for Communion 


circumstances it seem desirable, but as a rule the Christian 
tradition has been against it. The Church has always made 
difficulties about Mass being said in an unconsecrated building; 
partly because the Mass is the centre of ordered unity and 
should be celebrated at a Christian centre, partly because 
clinical celebrations might become schismatic gatherings, and 
also because the surroundings might be unseemly. 

There is a canon of the ninth century forbidding it on 
the third ground. “In the midst of hounds and _harlots,” 
says the canon, “the holy mysteries are defiled rather than 
consecrated.” 

This recalls an incident in my own ministry. As a young 
priest I was called upon to offer the holy sacrifice at two 
o’clock in the morning in the filthy room of a man in the 
last Stages of septic pneumonia, the floor above being a 
brothel, and the floor below being a brothel. 

On the other hand, I should be sorry if celebrations in 
houses came to be ruled out altogether. They are greatly 
valued by devout bedridden people, and have often had a 
missionary value in a family. Some of our most beautiful 
memories are conne¢ted with sick-room celebrations. 

But for the future our normal method of communicating 
the sick will be in the traditional Christian manner—with 
the Sacrament reserved and taken for the purpose from the 
tabernacle, pyx or aumbry. 

Both practical convenience and decency will, I think, be 
found ultimately to require that this, generally speaking, shall 
be according to the traditional Christian custom in one kind. 
The reservation of the chalice has always been against the 
mind of the Church, and most priests will feel it to be 
practically impossible to carry the chalice to, the sick. Modern 
distances and modes of travel make this more unfitting than 
ever. I had to take the Blessed Sacrament thirty miles the 
other day. The powerful car which was sent for me had been 
told to make haste. Twice, the case I had with me was flung 
across the car. Under such circumStances the Blessed Sacra- 
ment can only be carried in one kind in a pyx round the 
neck. Entering, as we are, upon a period of experiment, it 
is probable that some priests will prepare intinéted Hosts for 

169 


The Reserved Sacrament 


reservation in the tabernacle by touching them with the 
Precious Blood. This is probably not Communion in both 
kinds; the element of wine is said to lose its integrity under 
these circumStances almost at once, and if this is so such a 
dealing with the chalice is not reverent. On the other hand, 
where the occasion permitted, there could, I think, be no 
objection to tinéting a Host at Mass with the Precious Blood 
and carrying it at once to a sick person. But this would only 
be possible in certain cases; it would meet no case of urgency. 

Freedom to communicate the sick in one kind is impera- 
tively required. I speak from personal experience. I myself — 
have received Viaticum taken from the tabernacle at All 
Saints in the middle of the wedding of a friend of mine 
whom I was to have married. 

This experience lays upon me the responsibility of urging 
freedom to give Communion in one kind to the sick and 
dying in this revival of religion. 

But the Communion of the sick and dying is but a small 
part of the mission of the reserved Sacrament. The Sacra- 
ment is also reserved for the Communion of the oppressed. 
I insist on the phrase “the Communion of the oppressed,” 
for I hold that all those who are forcibly prevented by the 
hard conditions of their lives from coming into the glowing 
heart of the Church’s life—the celebration of the mysteries— 
are more oppressed than those slaves who came to Mass from 
Nero’s household. There are classes of people in country 
places and in the towns whose occupations would prevent 
them all their lives from leading the life of Communion unless 
they can be communicated from the reserved Sacrament. For 
example, a priest is breakfasting after his Mass on Sunday 
morning. A servant enters. “ Please, Father, three newspaper 
boys are at the door; they say they have finished taking their 
papers round, and they are ready for their Communions.”’ ° 
That is a request which no priest will ever be able to refuse. 

Every Sunday morning before the earliest Mass some 
hospital nurses may be found kneeling before the tabernacle 
at All Saints with only ten minutes at their disposal. Those 
nurses can never be sent empty away. 

I recall an incident of thirty years ago. I was on a mission. 

170 


Its Use for Communion 


I met a man of great holiness of life in that mission. He was 
a distributor of milk in a large London suburb. At the end of 
the mission he brought me a resolution. It was to read the 
Bible with prayer three times a day. I proposed to apply the 
missioner’s blue pencil to the resolution. “I advise,” I said, 
“that you make it twice a day; three times might prove un- 
manageable.” He looked at me with a little surprise. “‘ But 
I have always done that,” he said, “and I am sure I can get 
in another time at the dinner hour.” “‘ You might also increase 
your Communions,” I said. “I cannot do that,” he said. “I 
go as often as I can.” “‘ How often is that?” I said. “ Four 
times a year. I have searched this neighbourhood, and there 
is one church which, four times a year, has a celebration early 
enough for me, but that is all.” For all such cases as this the 
age-long wisdom of the central Christian tradition has pro- 
vided the possibility of Communion from the tabernacle. 

My lords, reverend Fathers, my brethren, the Lord’s Supper 
in the Church of England has become what the Apostles knew 
it must never be—the esoteric rite of the High Initiates. 

The deadly evil in the Church of England is the separation 
of the Lord’s children from the Lord’s table. 

The Church of England, as Newman said, has a miscarrying 
womb and dry breasts because she*“has ceased to feed upon 
the Bread of Life. 

This Congress shows that our Lord’s children are finding 
him again in the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus Christ in the 
Blessed Sacrament of the altar must be made accessible to 
every man, woman, and child in this country, accessible in 
that point of perfect union between himself and his children 
which he has designed, and in which he says to the nurse and 
to the shepherd, to the milkman and to the thin and white- 
faced but most plucky little newsboy: “‘Come unto me, all 
ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 


171 


The Reserved Sacrament 


3 Il & 
Its Devotional Aspect 


By LIONEL THORNTON, C.R. 


MGSO <a? C27EC HE devotional aspect of the Reserved 
r = % VY") Sacrament depends for its significance 
S25 Le upon the whole meaning and purpose 
ok of the Holy Eucharist. This Sacrament 
Z sy was ordained for the two great ends 
<S>7 of sacrifice and communion, which are 
EF but two sides of our Lord’s one great 
A9y », redeeming activity for the salvation of 
Ae aay smankind. That redeeming activity is 
as ee in all ii SAE of the Church and operates 
through all the Sacraments, but most of all is it to be found 
in the Sacrament of the Altar. Our Lord’s redeeming activity 
is embodied in the whole a¢tion of the Eucharistic Liturgy. 
But at the consecration that action is gathered up into the 
Eucharistic Gifts through the transformation of bread and wine 
into Christ’s Body and Blood which then takes place. Thence- 
forth the end of the Eucharistic a€tion is communion. Thus 
the action of the Mass is embodied in each host, which is 
consecrated and reaches its appointed end in each individual 
act of communion. The Real Presence of our Lord in the 
Sacrament has for its context the whole of this Eucharistic 
action, and the sacred gifts must never be regarded as though 
they could be out of relation to that action with all that it 
signifies and effects. Now when the Blessed Sacrament is re- 
served, it is reserved for communion and for no other purpose. It 
is therefore Still within the context of the Eucharistic rite. 
There is no breach in the essential action of the rite and no 
change in the Status of the consecrated gifts. There is no 
breach in the Eucharistic aétion when reservation takes place, 
because the purpose for which the Sacrament is reserved is to 
172 





Its Devotional Aspect 


fulfil one of the fundamental ends for which the Sacrament 
was ordained—namely, communion. There is no change in 
the status of the Sacrament when reserved, and the reason is 
once more the same. It is reserved for communion, for acts of 
communion which have precisely the same chara¢ter, or quality, 
as acts of communion which are made at the altar during the 
service of Holy Communion in church. The reserved Sacra- 
ment is capable of giving communion. It embodies, then, the 
redeeming activity of our Lord and effects his saving work of 
love for souls. 

The Sacrament reserved is, therefore, not something other 
than or different from the Holy Eucharist. It is an extended 
use of the Sacrament for the more complete fulfilment of the 
end for which the Sacrament was ordained. In this extension 
conditions of time and space are changed; but they are of 
secondary importance. Nothing else is changed. It follows, 
then, that the devotional attitude which is fitting in the 
presence of the Sacrament reserved must be precisely the same 
attitude as we should adopt during the actual Liturgy when 
consecration has been effected and the sacred gifts upon the 
altar are Still unconsumed. The word which most fittingly 
sums up our devotional attitude in both cases is the word 
“adoration.” Adoration is something which we can fittingly 
render to God alone. It is the attitude of the creature towards 
the Creator, and of the Christian Church to the Three Persons 
of the Blessed Trinity. The Eucharistic Liturgy is in its essence 
prayer addressed to the Father through the Son. But within 
that Liturgy adoration is offered, as in the heavenly worship 
of the Apocalypse, to the Lamb of God slain for our redemp- 
tion. For the throne of God and of the Lamb is one throne. 
The Eucharistic adoration which we offer to our Lord finds 
its focus in the consecrated gifts of his Body and Blood. 
Wheresoever those gifts may be, whether upon the altar during 
Mass or in the tabernacle or aumbry reserved for communion 
or being carried from church to communicate the faithful in 
their homes—towards them our Eucharistic adoration is rightly 
and properly directed. We must conclude, then, that as the 
Eucharistic worship of the Church is the crown of all creaturely 
worship directed towards the Creator, so the heart of that 


173 


The Reserved Sacrament 


worship is the adoration of our Saviour sacramentally present 
in his redeeming activity, and that the supreme rightfulness 
of this adoration is a principle which continues to operate un- 
changed when we are in the presence of the Sacrament re- 


served. For those who hold the faith of the Universal Church - 


concerning the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, no other 
conclusion is really possible. The rightfulness of adoration in 
the presence of the reserved Sacrament is fully recognized by 
the Eastern Churches. To those who have sought to maintain 
that this is not the case you will find a convincing reply in an 
utterance of His Holiness the Archbishop of Athens, which is 
printed at the beginning of our Congress hand-book. It is per- 
feétly true that this principle has not received in the Eastern 
Churches that developed application which has obtained in the 
West. But a difference in the application of a principle is a 
very different thing from its denial. This question of diver- 
gence between East and West is too large a subject to deal 
with adequately within the limits of this short paper. It in- 
volves very large queStions concerning the nature of authority 
and concerning the character of historical developments which 
would take us far beyond our present subject. I will merely 
record my conviction here that the bearing of Eastern methods 
of worship upon this subject needs to be placed upon a very 
much wider background than is commonly allowed to it in 
current controversy. The most serious case of Western diver- 
gence from the East is the introduéction of the Filiogue 
clause into the Nicene Creed, a divergence which, for good or 
ill, we share with the rest of WeS&tern Christendom. The 
problem of historical divergence is not so simple as some would 
have us suppose. 

The primary ground of our devotional attitude towards the 
Sacrament reserved is the faith of the whole Catholic Church 
concerning the Holy Eucharist, and the conviction that where 
our Lord is sacramentally present, there he must be adored. 
To this it must be added that the conditions which accompany 
and control this adoration are precisely those conditions which 
are operative in the case of adoration offered during the 
actual Liturgy. These conditions may be summed up under 
three heads: In the first place, reservation constitutes, as we 


174 


Its Devotional Aspect 


have seen, an extension of the priestly action of our Lord, as 
that is embodied in the Eucharistic rite; secondly, the purpose 
for which we reserve is communion; and, thirdly, the co- 
operative action of the whole worshipping Church is involved. 
Of the first two points something has already been said. With 
regard to communion, it is sometimes urged that Eucharistic 
adoration should be closely connected with the act of com- 
munion. It is certainly true that the highest and best way in 
which we can show adoring gratitude for our Lord’s sift of 
himself is by devoutly receiving him into our hearts in a good 
communion. But if this important truth is pressed in an ex- 
clusive sense to mean that we may only adore when we com- 
municate, it would necessarily seem to imply that the only 
ground for Eucharistic Bee lies in our own individual ex- 
perience of communion. Incidentally, such a view would also 
exclude the universal Catholic custom of assisting at Mass at 
times when we do not communicate. The ethos of Catholic 
worship can never be confined within such narrow individual- 
istic conceptions. For the Eucharistic a¢tion is something 
much larger and richer than can be measured by our poor 
individual needs and experiences. Yet we have a share in the 
whole action, and a share in the Church’s ministry applying 
that action to the needs of others, whether in the Mass itself 
or by means of the Sacrament reserved. This brings us to the 
third condition mentioned above. The co-operative a¢tion of 
the whole worshipping Church is involved, as in the rite itself, 
so also when the rite is extended in the Sacrament reserved. 
We can see this principle at work in the history of the prac- 
tice of reservation. When the Church was a _ persecuted 
minority in the early centuries, private reservation was widely 
practised. The Blessed Sacrament was taken from the open 
communion by the laity to private houses, and there reserved 
for the communion of those for whom opportunities of cor- 
porate worship in the midst of a pagan world mutt often have 
been rare and difficult to obtain. When, however, these diff- 
culties ceased, the practice was brought to an end and replaced 
by public and official reservation. Ultimately reservation in 
the open church became the rule; and this was surely a great 
gain. For reservation, being an extension of the Eucharistic 


175 


The Reserved Sacrament 


rite, is essentially a public and corporate matter which con- 
cerns the whole body of the faithful, whether it happens to 
concern their own individual need of communion or not. 
From this point of view, the modern return to a more private 
practice of reservation in the peculiarly clerical form of placing 
the Blessed Sacrament in a locked chapel, to which the clergy 
alone have access, seems curiously artificial and, to say the least, 
difficult to justify. For how shall the mass of our people 
come to know of and appreciate the privilege of communion 
from the reserved Sacrament in case of need, if this particular 
form of our Lord’s ministry to souls is deliberately hidden 
away from them, so that they never become accustomed to the 
thought of it? 

On these grounds, then, we must hold that reservation 
should be under such conditions as secure the principle of 
access to the whole worshipping body of Christian people. 
Reservation is thus seen and recognized to be as much a part 
of the official corporate aétion of the Church as the Liturgy 
itself. But this principle has another application which de- 
mands consideration—namely, that precisely the same adora- 
tion is due to our Lord in the Sacrament reserved as is the 
case when we are present at the Eucharistic Liturgy. It is very 
widely supposed that we are concerned here with nothing 
more than a demand for spiritual luxuries. Such an idea 
Strangely misrepresents the facts of the case. Let me repeat 
once more what those facts are: 

1. Reservation is necessary that the Blessed Sacrament may 
be brought within the reach of all, whether sick or whole, 
who would otherwise certainly be deprived of their right of 
communion. 

2. Such reservation is part of the Church’s official ministry, 
and as such concerns the whole body of the faithful. Reserva- 
tion should therefore be public and open. 

3. The same adoration is due to our Lord in the Sacrament 
reserved as during the offering of the Mass. 

It is not, then, a question of spiritual luxuries, but of the 
honour due to our Lord himself. The question as to how this 
honour can be properly shown falls under a number of aspeéts. 
In the first place, the Blessed Sacrament must be reserved under 

176 


Its Devotional Aspect 


reverent conditions; and the devotional habits and practices 
which surround communion from the reserved Sacrament must 
be of such a kind that honour is done to our Lord and that 
devotion to him is fostered. The place of reservation should be 
of such a kind that it is reasonably secure from avoidable risks 
such as fire or even deliberate sacrilege. It should also be clearly 
indicated by outward marks of reverence such as a distinétive 
lamp with its light kept constantly burning. When the Sacra- 
ment is taken out from the church for the communion of the 
faithful, this aétion should be surrounded from first to last 
with such outward signs of piety and devotion as are reason- 
ably possible. Under modern conditions it is probably wise to 
observe some restraint in.this matter. If the Holy Sacrament 
must be carried through busy and crowded Streets, it will be 
be&t to have as little oStentation as possible. But the faithful 
who may happen to be in church at the time can be warned 
by the use of a small bell that our Lord is going forth to feed 
the soul of a brother or sifter who needs their prayers. So, 
too, when the Divine Guest enters our houses on this blessed 
mission, he must come to a place prepared, where he is met 
with outward marks of adoring love and worship. If I do 
not particularize further on this matter, it is not because the 
detailed technique of such outward piety is unimportant, 
but because there are a large number of parish priests amongst 
us who, from a wide experience, could speak of such matters 
with a much greater practical wisdom than I can command. 
The purpose of reservation includes the communion of the 
dying. This means that if reservation is to achieve its pur- 
pose it must be perpetual. The Blessed Sacrament, then, will 
be continuously reserved in the open church; and this fact will 
inevitably colour the whole devotional life of those who wor- 
ship there. But let us take care that we put things in their 
right order. We do not desire reservation simply that we may 
enjoy this great Stimulus to the prayers which we offer in 
church. It is rather that such reservation is an indispensable 
condition for the realization of a full sacramental life of com- 
munion on the part of the worshipping congregation, and so 
of the parish as a whole. That is the fundamental principle. 
But if that is so, it follows that the devotional values and 


N 177 


The Reserved Sacrament 


practices which accompany the fulfilment of the condition are 
not “ luxuries,” but normal concomitants of the due observ- 
ance of a principle inherent in the Gospel. Where the Blessed 
Sacrament is reserved, there our Divine Redeemer is mani- 
fested in the activity of his age-long mission to feed and renew. 
the souls of his people with the gift of his crucified and 
glorified Human Life. The piety which recognizes this fact, 
and which hastens to greet the Lord in this his adorable self- 
giving, is a piety which is essentially one with the spirit and 
temper of the New Testament. 

Adoration, then, the adoration of the Lamb slain for our 
salvation and yet reigning for ever upon the throne of heaven 
—this is the first and last word about our attitude in the 
presence of the Holy Sacrament reserved. Such adoration, 
however, will carry with it much else that belongs to the life 
of prayer. Experienced parish priests tell us that two great 
devotional gains follow upon their observance of the Gospel 
principle in this matter. First, there is a great increase in the 
volume of prayer which is offered in church, with all that this 
means in the way of atmosphere and enhanced spiritual power. 
Secondly, there is a marked increase in the number of com- 
municants and in the frequency of communions made. In 
other words, there is a quickening and deepening of the whole 
communicant life of the parish and congregation. It could 
hardly be otherwise. For adoration is a true foundation upon 
which to build other forms of prayer. Moreover, every sincere 
prayer offered in the sacramental Presence binds us more 
closely to the communicant life, reminding us of the last aé 
of communion and pointing forward to the next. If this be 
the case, how pitifully wrong is the notion (referred to earlier 
in this paper) that adoration, which finds its focus in the 
Blessed Sacrament reserved, is dissociated from communion. 
On the contrary, it binds us more closely to communion and 
assists us to all that is involved in good communions, such as 
well-grounded habits of penitence and the true spirit of wor- 
ship, a spirit so deeply lacking in much that passes for Chris- 
tianity to-day, with an increased and grateful recognition of the 
saving love and power of Christ, who thus tabernacles amongst 
us for a perpetual ministry to hungry souls in their need. 

178 


Its Devotional Aspect 


The Blessed Sacrament, when reserved, is thus the normal 
focus of a great Stream of adoration and prayer. The question, 
then, inevitably arises as to the specific forms in which this 
adoration should express itself. That question once raised, 
and the legitimacy of such adoration being granted, it is 
difficult to see on what grounds it can be supposed that the 
expression of the principle of adoration is to be confined to 
the forms of private and individual devotion. We have seen 
that the Church moved from practices of private reservation 
to an official practice of public and open reservation. In the 
West there followed upon this various developments of cor- 
porate adoration. The Christian religion is essentially corporate 
and social. It seems, then, unreasonable to hold that particular 
types of devotion may be allowed in our private prayers 
in church; but that as soon as we begin to say these prayers 
aloud together we have passed a border-line between what is 
legitimate and what is illegitimate. We cannot separate in- 
dividual and corporate forms of devotion into different pigeon- 
holes in that way. We cannot do it in any case because it is 
psychologically impossible. If the Sacrament is reserved at, or 
near, the High Altar, then every office said corporately in 
choir, every public service on Sunday or week-day is oftered 
before the sacramental Presence, and acquires from that faét 
a distinétive tone, in which the Blessed Sacrament inevitably 
becomes the focus of our corporate devotion on such occasions. 
If, then, there is added to the Divine Office on Sunday even- 
ing, or provided at some other time, a form of corporate 
devotions explicitly directed towards our Lord in his sacra- 
mental Presence, giving expression to that adoration which is 
in the hearts of all who worship there, no new principle 
is introduced. Rather a reasonable and humble recognition is 
given to the adorable Majesty of our Lord’s Presence, and a 
safeguard is provided against a thoughtless and too light re- 
gard for so great and so gracious a Gift. 

Such considerations must surely win their way, sooner or 
later, to fuller recognition. Important principles are involved 
which cannot be ignored. Whatever limitations it is thought 
right to lay upon parish priests in their desire to give concrete 
expression to these principles, the faithful cannot be altogether 


179 


The Reserved Sacrament 


restrained from uniting to adore our Lord in his Holy Sacra- 
ment. Is it, then, desirable that unofficial and perhaps lay 
forms of corporate devotion should spring up, which, because 
they remain unrecognized and ‘unofficial, for that very reason 
cannot be adequately controlled? In the early centuries, when - 
unofficial private reservation was practised, the Holy Sacra- 
ment was sometimes put to uses which were definitely super- 
Stitious. There were instances; for example, of its being 
carried about on the person to protect the individual Christian 
from danger on his travels. Such superstitious uses were over- 
come, not by suppression of all reservation, but by official 
recognition of the principle and by its embodiment in a form 
which obviated such dangers. This brings us to the considera- 
tion of an important objection against what is called the extra- 
liturgical cultus of the Blessed Sacrament. It is urged that, 
even though it may be right in principle to offer adoration to 
our Lord when we are in the presence of the reserved Sacra- 
ment, yet if such definite forms of corporate devotion become 
eStablished there is real danger of abuse through a one-sided 
concentration upon this aspect of Christian worship in contrast 
to others, leading to a loss of proportion in our apprehen- 
sion of the Gospel. It is important to observe that objections 
of this type do not necessarily involve any denial of the 
principle of Eucharistic adoration, even when applied to 
the Sacrament reserved. The anxiety expressed in such objec- 
tions is shared by many who would claim to join with us 
in loyal adherence to the faith of the Catholic Church con- 
cerning the Holy Eucharist. They have every right therefore 
to claim the most serious and open-minded consideration of 
the difficulty which they feel. 

Now there can be little doubt, I think, that dangers of 
abuse in connection with this cultus are by no means 
negligible. All popular movements of religious revival are 
liable to develop dangerous extravagances; and since the 
devotional movement which we are now considering has an 
essentially popular appeal, it would a priori be very Strange if 
it were altogether exempt from such dangers. ] would go 
further. It is fairly clear that since the cultus began to develop 
in the later Middle Ages in WeStern Christendom, there have 

180 


Its Devotional Aspect 


been elements present in it from time to time which are most 
undesirable. But then it is equally certain that something of 
this kind could also be said about all forms of Christian wor- 
ship. There were wrong and superstitious ways of regarding 
the Holy Eucharist itself at the close of the Middle Ages. 
Similarly, in the Church of England we have had a long- 
Standing and deep-rooted abuse without parallel elsewhere in 
historic Christendom in the pra¢tical substitution of the Divine 
Office for the Lord’s own service on Sundays. Yet the Re- 
formers did not abolish the Holy Eucharist, nor has anyone in 
the Catholic revival proposed the abolition of the Divine 
Office. 

The truth is that the danger of abuse and one-sidedness 
in methods of worship is unfortunately one which can never 
be adequately met by the simple policy of abolishing what has 
been or is likely to be misused. If that were the only remedy, 
I fear that some of the best things in God’s world would be in 
danger. Moreover, the policy of making worship safe from 
abuse is in itself a negative policy and not a very inspiring 
one. There is, however, a better way. If we are to have a 
healthy and well-balanced devotional life, it will depend upon 
our preserving the due proportion of the Faith. Sound 
theology and a faithful ministry of teaching are the best and 
surest safeguards against such dangers. Piety always stands in 
need of godly knowledge for its purification and enlighten- 
ment. Religious emotion must be tempered with moral vision 
if it is to bring forth the fruits of righteousness. The Christ 
whom we adore in his sacramental Presence is the Eternal 
Wisdom of the Father and the Lord of all life. In the recently 
published Letters of Baron Von Hiigel, we read that it was 
the frequent custom of that great religious thinker to end his 
walk with a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, and to remain 
for some time in rapt devotion before the Presence. In so 
doing he did not leave behind his ripe wisdom and profound, 
yet always reverent, speculations concerning high matters of 
the Faith. Did he not rather consecrate these very treasures 
there before the tabernacle, so that knowledge and devotion 
were blended into one whole to the greater illumination and 
enrichment of the Church of God? So it was also with our 

181 


The Reserved Sacrament 


dear friend and father, Bishop Frank Weston. For him the 
Christ of the tabernacle was the King of Righteousness, the 
Champion of the poor and the oppressed. We, too, must see 
to it that our devotion is not a poor, narrow sentimental thing. 
The adoration which we rightly offer to our Lord in the, 
Blessed Sacrament reserved must be fed with serious thoughts 
and generous interests, consecrating in turn those thoughts 
and interests and all the best that is in us to the service of God 
and of his Kingdom among men. 





182 





The Eucharistic Liturgy 


ol & 
Eucharistic Rites 


By K. D. MACKENZIE 


E speak of the Mass as a drama. That 
&< may mean that it is something done 
’Z\rather than something merely said— 
5) drama, not merely rhema. But that is 
a doctrinal point and does not concern 
us this afternoon. 

Again, the Mass may be called 

Ws dramatic in another sense, because it 

“oO Eg Oj is a mystical rehearsal of the redemp- 

tive ye of an And, because mystical, it is far more than 

any mere Slage representation or acted parable. It transports us 

to the scenes of Nazareth, Bethlehem, Calvary, Olivet, the 

celestial Throne; and it Ape this in spiritual fact, not in mere 
remembrance. 

Or, more Straightforwardly, we may mean that it is a 
solemn tragedy or mystery play, with its scenery, its caste of 
players, its book of the words, its musical score, its traditional ., 
form. 

It is with the Mass as a drama in this last sense that litur- 
gical science is chiefly concerned. Yet we must bear the second 
sense in mind if we are not to fall into the shallowest ritualism. 
There is a heavenly counterpart to the business of the sanctuary. 
The real Altar, the real Priest and Victim are in the heavenly 
places; nay, we ourselves, HoSt, Priest, and People are all 
transported thither. 





183 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


We are to consider, then, the drama of the Mass. And first 
we notice, what is fundamental to the whole subject, that what 
we are accustomed to call “‘Low Mass”’ is, from the merely 
liturgical or dramatic point of view, a maimed rite. It is the 
veriest shadow of that august assembly of the faithful, accord- 
ing to their grades and functions, which is implied by the 
ancient word synaxis. It is possible, no doubt, for two or three 
people to meet and read through the libretto of ‘‘ Parsifal’’; but 
it would have little meaning for them unless they realized how 
“ Parsifal ” is intended to be played. So it is possible—blessedly 
so—for two or three to gather together in the name of Christ 
and celebrate the Mass. He is there in the midst of them. 
Nothing is lacking to the completeness of the blessing to be 
obtained. But from the limited point of view of liturgy, much 
of what is done can only be understood if it is realized that 
they are duplicating and reduplicating parts which should nor- 
mally be played by various actors. 

To understand the mise en scéne of the Mass, go back to 
the early part of the fourth century. This date is not chosen 
at random. It is the moment when the Church was first free, 
through the cessation of persecution, to develop her ritual 
as it ought to be developed; it is also the period when that ritual 
was fast crystallizing into definite forms. 

First consider the dramatis persone and their parts. 

There must be singers, both soloists and chorus, for the 
liturgical chants. At first the soloist is most in evidence, and 
the people, who have no books, break in at the end of his chant, 
and repeat the last few notes. Later, the system of a double 
choir is developed, and much of the singing becomes anti- 
phonal. 

The soloists themselves are members of the order of readers, 
and as such are responsible for the various lessons, though 
the culminating lesson from the Gospel is reserved for a 
deacon. 

In Western Christendom there are acolytes to attend on the 
superior ministers. Theirs is only a “ walking on part.” 

Subdeacons are there to assist the deacons. 

The deacons themselves have important and conspicuous 
functions which go far beyond the mere reading of the Gospel. 

184 


Eucharistic Rites 


They read the lists of those for whom prayer is to be offered, 
they instruct the people as to the proper moments to Stand or 
kneel, they dismiss the uninitiated, they make the Offertory, 
they administer the chalices; finally, they dismiss the faithful. 
In the East they also chant the Litanies. 

Priests are less conspicuous. Their place is to form a human 
“crown” about the Bishop, and join their prayers to his. But 
in early days, in the East, at any rate, their preaching office 
was for a time very important. Appalling as it may appear to 
our modern impatience of the word of exhortation, it was 
customary in some places for every priest present to deliver 
a sermon, unless, indeed, any of them chose to pass his turn. 
It is perhaps hardly surprising that a little later no one but 
the Bishop was allowed to preach at all. 

The president is normally the Bishop, though, of course, 
from apostolic days it had always been possible for a priest 
to take his place and act as his deputy. As the parochial syStem 
is developed, it becomes normal for the parish priest to cele- 
brate, and he begins to share what had hitherto been the 
episcopal title of Sacerdos. The Celebrant’s functions are: (1) 
to conclude the Litanies with a solemn prayer or collect; (2) to 
recite the Eucharistic prayer, or Anaphora, which is the heart 
of the service; (3) to break the Eucharistic bread; (4) to receive 
and administer Communion. 

Nor are the people without their special part. At first this 
is confined to echoing the final words of the chants, to answer- 
ing the salutations of the Bishop, and to certain well-known 
ejaculations: Kyrie eleison, “ Alleluia,” “‘ Thanks be to God,” 
** Amen,”’ “‘ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,”’ 
and perhaps Maranatha, ‘“Come, O Lord.” So at the well- 
known words, “‘ Holy, Holy, Holy,” the faithful cannot con- 
tain their enthusiasm and break in, interrupting the solemn 
Eucharistic prayer. For the same reason—that they knew the 
words—they will all presumably join in with “Our Father,” 
if it is said at all. 

In addition we may notice what Duchesne called the 
“ Spiritual exercises,” though these, of course, had long been 
obsolete at the date we speak of. At the end of the service 
the prophets, the ecstatics, the speakers with tongues had had 

185 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


their opportunity. ““ There was, as it were, a liturgy of the 
Holy Ghost after the liturgy of Christ, a true liturgy with a 
real presence and communion.””* 

So much for the a¢tors and their parts; now for the drama 
itself. 

It falls into two acts, very different from each other. Some- 
times, indeed, the first act was separately played. 

This first act is the service of the Word, afterwards called 
the Mass of the Catechumens, and corresponding to what we 
sometimes call the Ante-Communion. This was simply a 
Christianized form of that service of the Synagogue to which 
the earliest Christians were already accustomed. It consisted 
only of alternating lessons and psalms, followed by the preach- 
ing and the dismissal of the uninitiated. It is represented in 
Anglican rite by the Epistle and Gospel only, the Gradual 
being strangely omitted. The modern Introit is a psalm intro- 
duced at a slightly later date, to be sung during the entrance 
of the Celebrant, while the Western Kyrie is the relic of a 
litany which is often to be found, with its concluding collect, 
as an introduction to the service. 

The second act is the solemn renewal of the scene of the 
Upper Room. But that very scene was first enacted by a Jewish 
company, meeting, as Jews did week by week, on the eve of 
Sabbath or other festival, to usher in the solemnity by social 
gathering and prayer. Therefore it is not surprising that the 
original Eucharistic prayer itself, as we can first trace its 
echoes in St. Clement’s epistle, seems to be indebted to the 
Jewish liturgical benedictions. 

The first episode in Act II is a litany of intercession, followed 
by the Bishop’s prayers. This is called the Prayer of the Faith- 
ful, and corresponds to our Prayer for the Church. Next the 
kiss of peace is given. Then bread and wine are brought to 
the altar and placed thereon by a deacon. The Celebrant recites 
the Eucharistic prayer. The Host is broken. The Holy Sacra- 
ment is elevated with the words “ Holy things for the holy.” 
All join in the Lord’s Prayer, except perhaps in Rome, where 
it is doubtful if it was said at all at this date. The Bishop and 


* “Christian Worship,” translation S.P.C.K., p. 48. 
186 


Eucharistic Rites 


people communicate, and so, after thanksgiving, the service 
ends. 

This traditional framework of the service seems to have been 
universal at the beginning of the fourth century. Far earlier 
than this, in the middle of the second century, we find that 
St. Polycarp was able to say Mass in Rome without any anxious 
questioning of Anicetus as to “ What do you do here?” Prob- 
ably we are safe in assuming that the general outline of the 
Mass as we have sketched it here is apostolic. 

The adtual Eucharistic prayer could at first be varied by 
the Bishop at his discretion, but by the fourth century it has 
attained something that might be called a classical form. The 
Celebrant begins by calling on the Christian family to lift their 
hearts to heaven, and then proceeds to a solemn thanksgiving 
to the Eternal Father for all his wonderful works, creative, re- 
demptive, sanctifying. Then comes the detailed and emphatic 
commemoration of the Last Supper, with its command: “Do 
this,” and its affirmation and promise: “‘ This is my Body, and 
this my Blood.” So, then, moved by command and promise 
alike, in memory of his Death and Resurrection, in the hope of 
his Return, the Bishop, on behalf of the whole Christian 
people, offers the sacred gifts as a thank-offering, and prays 
that God will send upon them his Holy Spirit, so that all who 
partake thereof may receive the full blessings of Communion. 
Nor are the blessings of the Sacrifice limited to those who are 
actually present in church. A long and detailed intercession is 
a feature of the ancient Eucharistic prayers, and this seems the 
natural, as it was perhaps the original, place for it. So the 
prayer always ends with an ascription of praise to God in 
Trinity, and with the people’s Amen. 

It is obvious that we have here a highly developed formula, 
and it would be very rash to assume that the primitive method 
of Consecration was exactly like this. It will be worth spend- 
ing a little time on trying to trace the development of the 
Eucharistic prayer. 

In the New Testament it seems to be referred to simply as 
the Thanksgiving, and we are told that it is a showing of the 
Lord’s Death. We do not hear of any explicit aét of offering, 
but the idea of sacrifice is inherent in the rite itself, and was 


187 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


clearly present to the mind of St. Paul. Nor do we find any 
trace of a petition that the Sacrifice may be sanétified by the 
Holy Spirit. To the Jewish mind the mere fact that the sacred 
gifts were a thank-offering was sufficient to sanctify them. 
The thanksgiving is the consecration, but the effect of zhis 
consecration is defined by our Lord himself—the consecrated 
Gifts, those Things over which thanks have been given, are 
now his Body and Blood. 

So in the middle of the second century, St. Justin says that 
the Eucharistic prayer consisted of praise to God the Father 
through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and 
that “the Food over which thanks have been given by means 
of the word of prayer which comes from him is the Flesh and 
Blood of the Incarnate Jesus.” The thanksgiving is still the 
essential thing, and there is no sign of any invocation in the 
later sense. On the other hand, it seems difficult to suppose 
that either then, or at any date, Mass could have been celebrated 
without an appeal to the venerable precedent of the Upper 
Room and to the words then spoken. 

Going on another sixty years we have more evidence of 
the type of prayer which was in use. (We cannot say more 
than “‘type,”’ for, after all, the a¢tual words Still depended on 
the will of the Celebrant, unless he chose to use a written form.) 
From the early years of the third century we have an actual 
quotation from a liturgy used in Rome. We notice three points. 
There is a definite and explicit memorial of the Death and 
Resurrection of our Lord—what is technically called an 
anamnesis; there is a definite act of offering, and there is a 
petition that God will send his Holy Spirit on this oblation of 
his holy Church. Yet even here the invocation is not a clear 
and definite act of consecration; we may suppose that it was 
suggested by the idea that some prayer for blessing ought to 
be added to the thanksgiving; the request actually made is that 
God will send his Spirit on that which the Church has offered, 
so that feeding on it the communicants also may be filled with 
the same Spirit. 

Soon after the conversion of Constantine we begin to have 
access to stereotyped liturgies, and we find that by this time 
they contain in all cases a definite prayer that the elements 

188 


Eucharistic Rites 


may become Christ’s Body and Blood for the purpose of Com- 
munion. In one case, the Egyptian prayer of Serapion (a.D. 
350), the earliest complete Eucharistic prayer which we possess, 
the petition is that God’s Word may come upon the elements. 
It seems probable from St. Justin and St. Ireneus that this 
was the earlier phrase; but whereas in more primitive times 
it merely signified God’s word of power, it is possible that it 
had come to mean the personal Word of God, the Incarnate 
Logos, Jesus Christ. If this is so, it is easy to see how slight 
a change of emphasis would be needed to arrive at the idea, 
first found in St. Ambrose (a.p. 378), that the spoken words 
of the Word Incarnate were the all-important faétor in con- 
secration. As St. Thomas put it many centuries later: 


*Verbum caro panem verum 
Verbo carnem efficit ”’ 


“Word made Flesh true bread he maketh 
By his word his Flesh to be.” 


But in every other extant Eucharistic prayer of the fourth 
century, except that of Serapion, it is the Holy Spirit who is 
invoked. Probably this was true even of the Roman rite of this 
date, of which no copy has survived. It is not unnatural when 
we remember the great theological stress which was being laid 
just then on the Person and work of the Holy Ghost. 

Serapion’s prayer and the other Egyptian rites have a pre- 
liminary prayer that God will bless the Sacrifice before the 
commemoration of the Institution, but all the Eastern liturgies 
have the great invocation after the aét of oblation, and Eastern 
theologians, from the fourth century onwards, treat this as the 
effective form of consecration. To our minds this arrangement 
of oblation first and consecration afterwards seems very 
Strange, for the Eastern Church is at one with ourselves in 
teaching that “the Lamb of God is offered in sacrifice in the 
holy Liturgy.”* But the primitive conception of the sacrifice 
seems to have been that our offering is bread and wine, and 


* Catechism of Nicolas Bulgaris. 


189 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


that God in accepting our offering makes it to be the Body and 
Blood of Christ. Thus the invocation came in to male it 
clear, so to say, what it is that we expect God to do with the 
bread and wine we have offered. But it seems a deeper and 
more Christian conception that there can be only one sacrifice, | 
and that the sacrifice of Christ himself. Yet this conception, 
though implied by Holy Scripture and recognized by theo- 
logians from the fourth century in any case, has found no ex- 
pression either in the primitive or the later Eastern rites. It is, 
indeed, the great merit of the Roman rite, when we first become 
acquainted with it, that it implies this deeper doétrine of the 
sacrifice. The invocation after the oblation has disappeared or 
been disguised; an exceptionally clear and distinét consecratory 
invocation (without mention of the Holy Spirit) is inserted 
before the commemoration of the Institution, praying that the 
sacrifice may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ, and 
when we come to the oblation we no longer hear of bread 
and wine, but of “the holy Bread of eternal life and the Cup 
of everlasting salvation.” 

The written liturgies fall into two main groups, Eastern and 
WeStern. The Eastern may be subdivided into the groups of 
Antioch, Alexandria, and Byzantium. The Antiochene rites 
are Still employed by various Uniate churches and by others 
which are nominally heretical. The Alexandrian rites are used 
by the Copts and Abyssinians. The Byzantine liturgies of St. 
Basil, St. Chrysostom, and “St. Gregory” (so-called) have 
ousted all others from the Orthodox Eastern Church, much as 
the Roman rite has destroyed the various Gallican liturgies in 
the West. We must not stay longer over these rites except to 
say of the Byzantine liturgies that the first two retain the 
general outline of the fourth century rites with the addition 
of a very elaborate form for the preparation of the elements. 
“St. Gregory ”’ is the Mass of the Presan¢tified. 

The Western rites are a puzzle. That of Rome was for 
several centuries a local peculiarity of the city of Rome and 
Southern Italy. All over the rest of Western Europe one form 
or another of the so-called Gallican rite was in use, a liturgy 
of ever growing elaboration, but nearer in some respeéts to the 
normal and original type. It is held by some authorities that 

190 


Eucharistic Rites 


the Gallican rite represents the ordinary and normal develop- 
ment of the liturgy in the West, and that the Roman rite is 
a drastic reformation of the fourth century in the interests 
of shortness and simplicity. Others believe that the normal 
WeStern rite is the Roman, and that they can find definite 
traces of Eastern influence in the Gallican service. 

It was this austere Roman rite which St. Augustine intro- 
duced into this country, and the later use of Sarum is only a 
local variation of the same rite, slightly Gallicanized by the 
French predilections of our Norman conquerors with their 
love of symbolism and pageantry. 

The chief peculiarities of the Roman rite, at least from the 
sixth century, are as follows: The prayer of the faithful has 
disappeared, leaving behind nothing except the curious fossil 
of “Let us pray” before the Offertory with no prayer to 
follow. The kiss of peace has been postponed to a point just 
before Communion as had always been the custom in Africa. 
In the Eucharistic prayer the tone of thanksgiving dies out 
abruptly after the Benedictus and is replaced by petition. The 
intercessions and commemorations of the saints are in a State 
of chaos. There is, as we have seen, no invocation after the 
aét of oblation, though Durandus in the thirteenth century was 
Still able to speak of the section beginning Supplices te as 
having a consecratory value. 

The Roman canon in its present form dates from St. 
Gregory, and, indeed, in all essential features the service is 
Still as he left it. Subsequent variations are more matters of 
use than of rite striétly so-called. 

The Gallican rite retained the very ancient feature of the 
“prayer of the faithful” in the form of an intercessory litany 
and prayer before the offertory. The kiss of peace came in its 
normal and original place before the Sursum corda. The 
Eucharistic prayer varied from day to day, not only in its 
contents, but in its whole charaéter. Sometimes there was an 
invocation of the Holy Spirit like that of the developed Eastern 
rites, sometimes one of a more primitive type. On one day 
there would be an act of oblation, but not on another. It all 
depended on the Kalendar. There was an extraordinarily com- 
plex ritual surrounding the Fraétion, and a blessing was given 


IQI 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


before Communion. The language of the liturgy tended to be 
florid and rhetorical. 

About the seventh century a change of profound signifi- 
cance took place in the invention of Low Mass, in which there 
is no music, and the priest aéts as his own deacon and sub- _ 
deacon while a server represents choir, acolytes, and people. If 
it is true that in St. Gregory’s time Mass took three hours, it 
was certainly time for something to be done about it! But St. 
Gregory no doubt made full use of his episcopal privilege of 
preaching. From the narrowly liturgical Standpoint, Low Mass 
may seem a mere corruption; practically, it has made possible: 
the most far-reaching developments for priest and people alike. 
The highest and the holiest is compressed into a minimum of 
time, and compassed with the minimum of personnel. It has 
become easy to say Mass, to hear Mass, every day. 

In the eighth and ninth centuries Gaul was in a State of 
liturgical chaos. Her own prayer-books were falling into con- 
tempt, the Roman books were eagerly sought after, Gallican 
prayers were farced with Roman ones; a mixed rite seemed 
to be springing up, half Gallican, half Roman. So great was 
the general lawlessness that at last the secular authority, Pipin 
the Short, decided to cure it by ordering the universal adoption 
of the Roman liturgy. The Mozarabic form of the “ Gallican ” 
rite had more vitality; it lingered on in Spain till the eleventh 
century, and is still to be found at Toledo. In the end, how- 
ever, the Roman rite itself was not a little enlivened by the 
play of Gallic fancy, and the Gallic love of symbolism and 
rhetoric. 

But on the whole it was the unique and distinctive Roman 
rite which finally ousted all other Western liturgies from 
the churches in communion with the Roman See. How should 
we consider this remarkable fact? As the survival of the fittest, 
or as an unfortunate instance of liturgical perversity? 

Certainly for all pra¢tical purposes the Roman rite has not 
been unworthy to take its place as the premier rite of Chrigten- 
dom. Concise, dignified, restrained, businesslike, yet sufficiently 
varied and interesting, it keeps the mind of the WeStern wor- 
shipper alert where the long unchanging rites of the East would 
plunge it into weariness. On the other hand, it towers high 

192 


Eucharistic Rites 


above the confusion of the Gallican liturgies and the crude- 
ness, dulness, self-consciousness, and provincialism of the Re- 
formation orders. 

Yet there is much to be said for a national rite, much for 
the vernacular, much even for a drastic handling of what is 
undeniably obsolete, much for a reform which shall take 
account of things older and things newer than the golden 
age of liturgy. Such was the opportunity of our first national 
revision in 1549, of the revision of 1662, of that of 1927. In 
all these cases there is much reason to wish that our revisers 
had handled the opportunity somewhat otherwise; but it would 
be most unfair and most unscientific criticism to judge of their 
success as though the Roman rite were the only Standard of 
liturgiology. 

As to the proposed rite of 1927, let my words be dispassion- 
ate, objective, and few: judged by a purely liturgical standard, 
it must surely be held to be an improvement on that of 1662. 
(Of course, I am speaking only of the Liturgy.) The restora- 
tion of a true Eucharistic prayer, which marches direct from 
Sursum corda to Amen, is an enormous gain to our sel& 
respect. 

Yet having said so much, it is perhaps not disrespectful to 
the sacred Synods to offer one or two criticisms. They have 
decided to adopt a method of consecration which has never 
before been used in this country. I say “ method” advisedly. 
There is no Catholic doctrine as to what is necessary for con- 
secration. All depends on the intention of the rite which is 
being used. The method adopted may be a very good one. 
It does not seem to be primitive, but it is certainly very ancient. 
Yet the departure from the Western tradition of sixteen cen- 
turies is Startling, and will cause much bewilderment, and not 
a little distress. There was no widespread demand for it, and 
it is viewed with the greatest repugnance by many of those 
whose legitimate wishes were supposed to be consulted in the 
provision of a new order. Indeed one might have thought that 
there would be few who could feel much satisfaction in the 
somewhat halting and equivocal form of epiclesis which is 
before us, or in that curious false echo of the Catechism which 
asks for bodily refreshment as a result of Holy Communion. 


oO 193 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


Yet we may thankfully notice that the new rite does explicitly 
maintain the developed doétrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice 
by repeating the act of oblation after the epiclesis. 

Again, something surely might have been done about the 
place of the Fraction. Consecration, Fra¢tion, Communion; 
that is an order which is coeval with Christianity. In the late 
Middle Ages a local custom arose of making a preliminary 
fraction of the unconsecrated host, a custom which was 
promptly forbidden. It was this medieval abuse which actually 
ousted the true liturgical Fraction from our liturgies of the 
sixteenth century, and it does seem a thousand pities that the 
opportunity was not taken of remedying so great a mistake. 

It must, I fear, be added that we have not altogether escaped 
the literary pitfalls which beset the path of the prayer-maker. 

In conclusion, a word about the objects of liturgy. 
Catholicism consecrates all life; Catholic liturgy consecrates 
the dramatic impulse. We are impelled by the a¢tor who is 
in every one of us to live over again the great scenes of our 
redemption; liturgy makes it possible to do this by means of 
something greater than the imagination. We are impelled to 
acclaim the Hero of our religion; liturgy provides us not with 
a Statue or merely symbolic representation, but with the true 
living Figure, yet acting a part “as it had been slain”: 
“Blessed is he that cometh,” we cry, and “O Lamb of God, 
have mercy upon us.”’ We are impelled to offer some token of 
devotion to God; and behold God provides himself a Lamb, 
and liturgy says Amen. We are impelled to do the work of 
God beautifully; liturgy consecrates not only sight and sound, 
but even touch and taste and scent. In Solemn Mass “ art comes 
full tide’; and of Low Mass a French critic once wrote: “II 
n’y a qu'une chose plus belle que Parsifal: c’eSt n’importe 
quelle basse Messe en n’importe quelle église.”” We are im- 
pelled by every dramatic instinét to ask in our religion for 
unity of theme with variety of method. Let me give you the 
answer of Catholic liturgy in the words of an Oxford philo- 
sopher, William Wallace: “Day by day, year by year,” he 
says, “in appointed cycle, the Church re-ena¢ted the deed once 
done, the life once lived, and the death once died, not in vain 
repetition or impious travesty of the accomplished faét, but in 


194 





Eucharistic Rites 


order to enforce by sensible image the eternal and universal 
virtue of . . . the way ... to life eternal. . . . Even so, 
always, what God may be said to do once for all, man, the 
child of time, can only equal by eternal repetition.”* And, 
indeed, through liturgy we children of time do enter on our 
timeless inheritance. As George Tyrrell put it: ‘One instant 
of that immaculate life which the soul lives as it flits like a 
moth through the . . . flame of the Divine Presence... 
and it has lived with a fulness of life all but Divine.” + 


i Il & 


Eucharistic Ceremonies 


By STEPHEN GASELEE anp MAURICE CHILD 


“pa\ HIS paper is the joint produétion of 
NY“ / two persons who hold different prefer- 


5 var: ences as to the ceremonial of the 


Eucharist to be used in the Church of 
England; one of us prefers what those 
who favour it call the “English,” the 
ly other what is called ‘“‘ Western”’ use; 
®» the former is the modern representa- 
WY GNKR OPO IFS C¥E tion, as nearly as it can be ascertained, 
and as nearly as it will fit the Book of Common Prayer, of 


Y 


/ C ¢ oN ‘ 





the Reformation; traces of something like it are Still to be 
found in parts of Southern Europe, in Spain, and elsewhere; 
the latter is the modern rite of the Catholic Church in the 
rest of Europe and America, equally fitted, as well as may be, 
to our Prayer Book. We have not come here to make a 
gladiatorial show for your amusement, and we regret un- 


* Gifford Lectures, v. + “ Hard Sayings,” p. 158. 
495 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


charitable words that have been used on both sides: the 
English usager will not call the other party a “ Romanizer,” 
the Westerner will not speak with a sneer of “ British Museum 
Religion”; we propose to lay before you our differences, to 
State the principles on which those differences are founded, 
and to make some very tentative suggeStions—they may be 
no more than inquiries—towards the future. 

Some preliminary descriptive matter is necessary. The 
English use is not, despite the published works of Dr. 
Dearmer, the Aleaed Club, and others, universally known in 
England; there are parts of the country where it hardly 
exists. We assume, however, that Western ceremonial, carried 
out with more or less completeness, is tolerably well known 
to you all, and the following survey will therefore record in 
the briefest possible fashion the English divergencies from 
WeStern ceremonial in the Mass. 

To begin with, the chancel of the church in which the 
Mass is said or sung will have a different appearance. Instead 
of an altar Standing high at the east end, with six candles 
and a crucifix upon it, and probably a high painted or carved 
reredos behind it, the altar will be long and low, with two 
comparatively short candles on it, the cross, or crucifix—if 
there is one at all—also very low; if there is any reredos, it 
will not be more than a couple of feet high, just reaching to 
the sill of the east window, which will come down very nearly 
to the altar itself, thus making the reredos, by the paintings in 
its lower lights; and the altar will be flanked by curtains 
coming out at right angles from the east wall, supported at 
their western ends by posts, which may be topped by angels 
holding candlesticks; anything in the nature of a “retable” 
or a “gradine”’ is entirely unknown to the English use. So 
is a tabernacle. If the Blessed Sacrament be reserved, it is 
not upon the altar itself, but either in an aumbry in the north 
wall, or something like the Sacrament-house, of which the 
most elaborate examples are to be seen in certain German 
churches, or in a hanging pyx, high above the altar, probably 
in the shape of a dove. No flowers nor flower-vases are ever 
placed on the English altar. 

When the sacred ministers proceed to the altar, it will be 

196 





Poe tiny 


Eucharistic Ceremonies 


seen that their vestments differ somewhat (in degree, though 
not in kind) from those used by Westerners. The priest’s 
chasuble is both longer and fuller, falling lower in front and 
behind, and coming further down over the arms: it is indeed 
a more developed form of the Gothic chasuble properly used 
by WeSterners in churches of Gothic style of architeCture. So, 
too, the dalmatic and tunicle of the deacon and subdeacon are 
larger than those now worn in the West; if there is only one 
assistant minister, he will wear dalmatic or tunicle—there is 
no absolute requirement of three clergy for something like 
a High Mass. All the assistants near the altar will wear albs, 
with or without tunicles—no surplices or cottas, though some 
of the boys may have a sleeved or winged rochet; and the 
amices and albs of all, clergy and assistants, will bear 
apparels. None of the clergy will wear birettas, or any other 
head-covering. The sequence of liturgical colours will be 
different from that familiar in the WeStern use, but that is a 
minor point that need not detain us here. The procession 
enters in this order: verger (as far as the choir-gate), taperers, 
thurifer, clerk (carrying the service book), subdeacon (carrying 
the book of the Gospels), deacon, priest; if there is a pro- 
cession, it goes in this order, the priest followed by the chanters, 
choirmen, choirboys, and any other clergy who may be present. 

There is no preparation said by the clergy before the altar, 
unless they treat as such the opening Paternoster and the 
Collect for Purity, which are historically part of the priest’s 
preparation; the priest kisses the mensa, blesses the incense, 
censes the altar, and then begins the Mass; he turns to the 
people for the Commandments, or recites them from a le¢tern, 
goes to the south side for the colleét, and then takes the deacon 
with him to the sedilia, while the subdeacon reads the epistle; 
the subdeacon should go to a lectern or ambo on the epistle 
side for the purpose. This ended, and while the gradual is 
sung, the deacon rises and censes the altar, and then proceeds 
to a lectern or ambo on the gospel side, or to the rood-loft; 
the priest Stands before the middle of the altar, facing the 
deacon, who first censes the gospel book and then reads the 
Gospel, while the subdeacon supports the ambo from behind, 
or, if he is reading from a pulpit, enters it with him; the 


197 


The Eucharistic Liturgy | 


clerk Stands behind the subdeacon with the cross, while the 
thurifer swings the censer behind the reading deacon; this 
over, the deacon hands the gospel book to the subdeacon, who 
places it on the north corner of the altar. Then follows the 
Creed, and then the sermon; and as the priest returns to the 
altar at the end of the sermon a ceremony takes place which is 
almost wholly absent in the Western rite. 

The clerk, accompanied by the thurifer, goes to the altar 
in a side-chapel (if there is one—if not, to the credence table), 
where the sacred elements, already prepared, are waiting. He 
places a long and narrow humeral veil round his shoulders, | 
with the ends of which he muffles his hands, and thus takes 
up the chalice and paten, and brings them to the high altar; 
the taperers meet him at the choir-gate, and the little pro- 
cession goes up to the sacred ministers; the deacon takes 
the elements from the clerk and hands them to the priest, 
who places them on the altar and censes them; the priest 
is then censed by the deacon, the deacon by the clerk; the 
thurifer then removes the censer, and no more incense is used ~ 
for the ret of the service. 

For the prayer for the Church Militant the deacon stands 
behind the priest, the subdeacon behind the deacon, moving 
a little aside when the priest faces the people for the Sursum 
Corda, and returning behind him when he turns again to the 
altar for the Preface; they keep this order, save for the prayer 
of Humble Access, until after the Consecration and the priest’s 
communion, when the deacon takes the chalice for the com- 
munion of the people; this done, he hands the pall, or second 
corporal, to the priest, who covers the elements with it, and 
they resume their old places; they go up to either side of the 
priest for the Gloria in Excelsis, and after the Blessing assist 
the priest with the ablutions; they go out in the order, taperers, 
thurifer, clerk (again carrying the sacred vessels in his hands 
muffled with the ends of the humeral veil), subdeacon, deacon, 
priest. No last Gospel is read from the southern corner of 
the altar. 

Usually, and in churches where the most ancient type of 
ceremonial is preserved, throughout the service the absence 
of the geSture called the “‘ genuflexion ”’ will have been noticed; 

198 


Eucharistic Ceremonies 


its place is taken by a deep and reverent bow, slightly bending 
one knee, which does not touch the ground. 

Let us now consider the motives of those who follow these 
two varying uses; but let us first clear out of the way two 
false motives; we do not believe that they are seriously held 
by either party, but they are rather alleged from outside to 
be in their minds; neither will bear a moment’s serious in- 
vestigation. 

First, the English usager will not buy off Protestant or 
latitudinarian opposition by his English usage; their hostility 
to his pre-Reformation use is no less than that which they 
would exhibit if he followed purely Roman minutiz. Indeed, 
he has been criticized for adopting “an even more puerile 
and superstitious” ceremonial than that of the modern 
Latin Church itself. His satisfaction will be purely in foro 
interno. 

Second, the WeSterner does not think that his following 
the outward forms of the modern Church of the West will 
induce Roman Catholics, of any or no standing, to regard 
him with greater favour or show a more brotherly disposition 
towards him. It is even probable that Roman Catholics, 
especially in England, do not like what they consider too close 
an imitation of their own ways; and in the higher and more 
learned circles of the Roman Church the old tendency towards 
universal “ Latinization”’ has been to a great extent reversed; 
the Uniats are strictly enjoined to keep their own ritual and 
ceremonial in their ancient purity, and to admit no Latin 
admixtures. 

Now that we have got the false motives out of the way, 
let us examine the true motives. 

The English usager has the satisfaction of compliance with 
the letter of the Law. Whether the Ornaments Rubric means 
exactly what it says, and commands the ornaments of the 
Church and priest to be precisely what they were at a given 
moment of history, or whether it refers to the First Prayer- 
Book of Edward VI., the English use obeys it literally. During 
the last twenty years research has determined, with a con: 
siderable degree of accuracy, the appearance of the altar and 
its ministers in 1549 and immediately before, and the results of 


199 


The Eucharistic Liturgy 


that research have been made easily accessible by the publica- 
tions of the Alcuin Club: if a man wishes to follow the in- 
junctions of the Ornaments Rubric with meticulous care, it 
is now easy for him to do it. 

This is the Strongest part of the English usager’s case; but 
there is another not unimportant consideration. He claims that 
his ceremonial is more beautiful and comely than the other, 
being the product of a more artistic age, and the most enthusi- 
astic Westerner will admit that the ceremonial revival came at 
an unfortunate moment; ceremonial (and all church trappings) 
had not recovered on the Continent from a long period of 
degradation in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries 
when our fathers of the Oxford Movement had to look abroad 
for models, so much having been forgotten at home. Further, 
some ninety per cent. of the churches in England are of various 
Styles of Gothic, either original or of the revival, and it is 
more natural, and artistically more correét, claims the English 
usager, to perform in them a ceremonial evolved in the Gothic 
age than to adopt one which has something Romanesque by 
the time and place of its evolution. 

The Westerner’s feelings on the matter are very comprehen- 
sible: we have a convenient and orderly ceremonial, worked 
out by experts, in full operation throughout the Continent of 
Europe; in it we have a safe guide for anything we can possibly 
want. Further, “ceremony follows patriarchate,” if we may 
vary a well-worn phrase, and though it is not of faith, it is 
seemly to follow the Bishop of Rome in the ceremonial which 
he has succeeded in inducing the ret of the West to adopt. 
To the arguments of the English usager detailed above, he will 
possibly reply with a parable: that of a family, once well off, 
which fell into several years of poverty, during which it 
lived in making use of any old clothes and furniture which 
came its way. When that family recovers its fortune and is 
able to set up house again, will it go to great trouble to procure 
clothes, furniture, domestic utensils, etc., of the exact Style 
prevalent when it lost its fortune? No, it will buy the best it 
can of the fashions reigning at the time of its restoration to 
prosperity. So with the Church of England. 

We trust that we have put these two views fairly before you, 

200 








Eucharistic Ceremonies 


so that each will recognize the strength both of his own and 
of the other party’s case. We have spoken of the past; we have 
now the more difficult task of endeavouring to look forward 
into the future. 

We do not think that either view will ever totally dis- 
appear in favour of the other; they represent two types | 
of mind, as there is both Saxon and Latin in our race and 
language. 

But a revised Liturgy, if and when we have one, will give 
an opportunity for reflection on this as on many other subjects; 
and we ask the question—we can do no more—whether it 
may-not present the occasion for a greater degree of harmony, 
and whether it is not possible that a ceremonial will evolve 
itself which combines the best of both uses. Liturgiology, if it 
is a live art, as we believe it to be, is not fixed for ever in an 
unalterable mould, but is capable of development; if we can 
get a large and thinking public, both clerical and lay, interested 
in it, working at it, thinking about it, at least it is possible 
that in time a ceremonial will appear which will be both 
English and WeStern. To both of us, for instance, the 
ceremony of the solemn bringing .of the elements from an 
altar in a side-chapel to the altar of the day’s sacrifice appears 
beautiful and significant, with the additional advantage of pre- 
serving a point of contact, lost elsewhere in the West, with 
our Eastern fellow-Christians; it is inconceivable that there can 
be any doétrinal objection to it, and its use at every High 
Mass would surely be nothing but gain. 

Among the minor beauties of the English use which we 
should be glad to see universal, we may mention the presence 
of a couple of cantors, usually in copes, at the choir-gates, 
leading the singing: among modern fashions which it avoids, 
and which we should be glad to see entirely away, is the use 
of scarlet cassocks by servers, making a blotch of colour which 
can hardly be stood by the internal decorations of any average 
church. We also commend the comparatively small periods of 
kneeling (at High Mass), and think that this posture should 
_ especially be avoided by the choir. We equally commend the 
absence of certain Southern European actions, the kissing of 
hands and of various objects, which will never be really agree- 

201 


The Eucharistic Liturgy © 


able to the English mind. We further consider that the restora- 
tion of the pre-Reformation sequences, now becoming familiar 
to congregations through the “‘ English Hymnal,” is valuable as 
tending towards a change we must all desire, the recovery of 
the “ proper’ of the Mass, and the use of it (in large measure) 
instead of hymns. 

On the other hand, the reading of the last Gospel at the 
altar (in the English rite it was said privately by the priest as 
he returned to the sacristy) is a ceremony now almost universal 
in the WeSt, and familiar to three or four generations of 
Anglicans. It has lost certain disadvantages which once accom- . 
panied it (for there is evidence of its use in the distant past 
for some unworthy purposes), and it is a simple and eminently 
evangelical practice. Its universal restoration among us should 
cause no searchings of heart. 

Among the other advantages of the Western use, we place 
the stress which it lays upon the value of ceremonial and the 
importance of taking the greatest care of details; and in re- 
spect of specific aéts we admit that in the English use the great 
ceremonial moment seems to be rather at the Gospel than at 
the consecration, so that the use of incense (not necessarily cere- 
monial censing) at that climax appears to us desirable. We also 
think that we should say a word on a somewhat vexed question 
—the place of the ablutions. The English praétice does, or 
at least seems to, conform with the rubric; but, as often carried 
out, it somewhat distorts the conclusion of the Liturgy, which 
should not be converted towards its close into a Mass of Ex- 
position. If the elements are retained on the altar from the 
Communion until after the Blessing, they should be literally re- 
garded as covered with the fair linen cloth, and not treated 
with outward a¢ts of worship; if there are some who find this, 
from a sense of reverence, a difficult course, the place of the 
ablutions soon after Communion will probably commend 
itself. 

These are but a few examples out of many that could be 
adduced, and you will easily think of other lines of ultimate 
harmony. We would not push “conflation” of uses to 
extremes, but we think that a rapprochement on the lines 
indicated is at least a possibility. 

202 


Eucharistic Ceremonies 


We must leave you on lines of thought tending in this 
direction. We have had to compress a wide subject within 
narrow limits, and we ask for no more at present than study 
of the position taken on both sides, and a charitable attitude 
by each towards the other. The more we understand, the 
better shall we like each other and his ways! 





203 


Eucharistic Worship 


a 1 & 
The Principles of Christian Worship 


By CHARLES WALSHAM HUTCHINSON 


VERSO le? REN HE subject title of the address that 1 
acy @ @) wy. es have with great trepidation undertaken 
z 97) to speak upon suggests, I am afraid, a 
theological discourse of great pro- 
& fundity. 
oy > x I have no qualifications to deal with 
= 2 Si] a) as @* J» the subject theologically, and when I 
oe ENO» try to speak to you of Christian 
MASE SES SP worship it will be from the point of 
view of the parish priest. I shall speak to you of the Mass as 
one has experienced it as the centre of life and work in a little 
corner of South-East London, and at the heart of a great camp 
family of boys by the sea. 

One of the great difficulties that confronts us to-day in our 
endeavour to commend the religion’ of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ to the men and women of our generation, is the 
modern habit of mind which tends to regard religion as a 
medicine for the needs of some—and those psychologically 
sick-people, or a solace for the unhappy and repressed, or as 
an occupation, a recreation for such as are insufficiently en- 
gaged in employment. 

An increasing number of people have come, of recent years, 
to dispense with religion. They get on without it. They 
establish for themselves a working moral code of some kind, 
a Standard of professional honour or esthetic sincerity, and it 

204 








Principles of Christian Worship 


appears to serve them very well. They lead unselfish, in- 
dustrious lives to which revealed religion seems to be irrelevant. 
They are profoundly uneasy about it at times, especially when 
it comes to dealing with the frank questions that spring from 
the deeply religious instinéts of their children. 

I heard the other day of a child—a seven-year-old—of 
very delightful, clever, puzzled, agnostic parents, who called 
a friend of her mother’s to her bedside and said: 

“Come back to me when Mummy has gone down. I’ve 
something fearfully important to ask you.” And when she 
returned the child posed her with, ‘‘ Do you believe in God?” 
and to the hesitating, uneasy reply, “Well, dear, I don’t 
know,” the child burst out: “ Mummy and Daddy don’t, but 
Binky and I do,” and went on to describe how she and Binky 
were wont to say their prayers daily in the garden behind the 
potting-shed ! 

In the main they dispense with God, but at moments of 
great joy and great sorrow they are aware of a void that 
envelops them with a devastating loneliness. Who was it said 
that the most tragic moment for an agnostic was not so much 
to have no Heavenly Father or Divine Companion to turn to 
when passing through a Valley of the Shadow, but in moments 
of joy and happiness to have nobody to thank? 

How is it that this eStrangement between religion and 
reality has crept in? How is it that the field commonly recog- 
nized to be the preserve of religion has dwindled and shrunk 
to a few poor acres, and that, in the opinion of so many, such 
a huge track of human interests and activities lies without its 
scope? 

I am not able to make a profound analysis, but it seems 
clear that Protestantism is answerable for this attenuation of 
religion. 

Always on the borders of the Catholic world there stood 
the dualistic religions of the East, with their conception of a 
world of matter for which God was not responsible— 
thoroughly bad, to be sloughed off—incapable of redemption 
and sublimation. Catholicism was always in conflict with 
these ideas, and they had to be dealt with in many shapes and 
forms in one heresy after another. 

205 


Eucharistic Worship 


They engendered a false asceticism—asceticism for its own 
sake, because the body is evil and the world is perishing—noz 
in the interests of life, because the world has been redeemed. 

At the Reformation these ideas found their way into the 
common Stock of European Christian thought. There was a 
return, moreover, to Old Testament standards, and a reversion 
to Old Testament taboos. All the ideas associated with the 
Hebrew Sabbath came back to plague and confuse us, as if 
Blessed Paul had never fought a good fight and withstood 
them, and kept the Faith for us free from the dead-weight of 
Jewish customs. 

As a child I sat beneath a black-gowned preacher who 
denounced indiscriminately the Drama, the Gaming Table, 
Cards, Dancing, and the Juice of the Grape. Everything in 
the world that seemed worth doing was verboten. Small 
wonder if I, too, registered a resolve that when I had achieved 
the emancipation of adulthood, I, too, would follow the 
paternal example and put on an easy coat and seleét a Stout 
ash-plant and whistle for the dog, what time the ranks of 
reluctant and uncomfortable children were being marshalled 
to church. 

Why, I asked myself, did people afflict themselves with this 
intolerable Sunday penance? From their joyless faces it was 
obviously no fun to them. If they could, in the poverty of 
their imaginations, think of nothing better to do, I could. 
Constrained by custom, they held to this weekly penance. 

It holds them no longer—God be thanked! But many have 
found nothing to take its place, and the old ideas survive. 
They still tend to think of religion as an inconsiderable de- 
partment of life, instead of the whole of it. They conceive of 
worship merely in terms of church attendance—a profound 
mistake. 

The supreme value of the Mass is that it demonstrates so 
clearly the unity of life, the consecration of creatures; it is 
the supreme act of a redeemed humanity in a redeemed world. 

Life zs worship. God is honoured by the right use of 
creatures, qualities, gifts. God made us to know him, love 
him, and serve him here, and to be happy with him for ever. 
He made us capable of knowing him, loving him, and serving 

206 


Principles of Christian Worship 


him. If we turn a delicate instrument, shaped for a particular 
task, to rough and alien ends, we blunt and spoil the instru- 
ment, we fail in our attempt to do the secondary task, and the 
great primary task remains undone. 

Man is restless and unhappy, oppressed with a sense of 
Sterility and futility, if he pursues any other ends but to know 
God with his wits, and in him all truth: to love God with his 
affections, and in him all creatures: and to serve God with all 
his faculties and his brethren in Christ. 

Worship is using these faculties aright. It covers the whole 
of life—not a little parcel of it—the great span which 
embraces the vast unseen world. God is praised when we use 
the gifts he gave us aright, heartily, and thankfully. 

To eat when we are hungry, to drink when we thirst, to 
dance, to: sing, to cleave the water with a Strong arm is to 
praise and glorify God. To run, to ride, to swim, to sleep 
when the day’s work is over—all, all is worship—in all God 
is praised and glorified. 

Our thanks, which are ‘“‘ shown forth in our lives,” have, 
however, their specialized a¢tivity in worship and sacrament. 
If you ask a guest to your house, you provide for him in your 
solicitude such things as will please him. You don’t require 
him always to be thanking you “in as many words,” but you 
rejoice to see him using gratefully and freely the good things 
of your bounty. He will thank you in a definite act, and that 
act will express and give articulation to that thankful use of 
your hospitality in which you have rejoiced. 

Is it not so with our Heavenly Father? and does not the 
Mass express joyously and triumphantly that confident and 
thankful use of creatures? In it is set forth upon our altars the 
eternal principle of the Incarnation. 

Christ has taken the bread and the wine, the daily bread 
by which our bodies live and the wine whereby we are re- 
freshed, and made them the eternal medium of supernatural 

race. 
i They become his vesture; he stands among us consecrating 
them for us, redeeming them and us. 

Does it not set forth, in challenge to the outworn negations 
and zaboos, the triumphant sacring of all things in Christ? 

207 


Eucharistic Worship 


And as men and women of to-day break away and disengage 
themselves impatiently from the dreary fears and timidities of 
Protestantism, let it be the glory of the Anglo-Catholic Revival 
to set before them this Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, con- 
secrating all good things, all human activities, all human pain 
and discipline in the adorable mySteries of the Mass. 

Christian worship, then, is primarily the giving of expression 
to the principle of praising God in the right use of his gifts. 
In the Mass is set forth eternally the Divine assumption of our 
human nature, transmuting all leaden human things to gold . 
by the irresistible alchemy of his love. 

At every Mass we go up with shepherds and with kings to 
see the wonder God wrought for men. It is the highest, 
noblest, and most satisfying expression of joy and thankful- 
ness. What other service could I give my boys at camp—with 
the Strong sun over us, and the sea sounding in our ears as we 
come streaming into the little chapel that is as beautiful as we 
can make it? What else expresses so gloriously the gaiety and 
the splendour of that experience? It is so felt, too, by the boys 
themselves. Although attendance is quite voluntary, the altars 
are thronged day by day with sunburnt, bare-legged boys. 

In the Mass is set forth also the consecration of human pain 
and discipline. The sadness of life consists not so much in the 
presence of pain and suffering, but in the dumb and sullen 
and resentful bearing of pain by those who have not offered 
it to God, along with the Passion of our Redeemer. It is the 
only contribution of any avail, and it is a tremendous contribu- 
tion, and in the Mass it is eternally set forth. 

In the midst of the dark courts and alleys where Christ 
suffers in the person of his children, the daily offering of the 
Holy Sacrifice emphasizes the redemptive character of human 
pain when consecrated and offered up to the Father in union 
with the saving Passion of Christ. 

Our last word. The Mass is a great liberation of the spirit 
for the children of God. 

One of the most devastating things about modern life is 
the conviction that comes to men as they grow older that the 
sense of freedom that belonged (in spite of all inhibitions) to 
childhood and youth is an illusion. That they are shut in and 

208 


Principles of Christian Worship 


circumscribed by a number of factors over which they have 
no control. “To crawl along a blooming drain-pipe until 
you die ”’—as one of Mr. Wells’ characters puts it. Heredity 
and environment between them have constructed a net in 
which the human spirit in its more discouraged moments 
Struggles desperately, and then settles down helplessly like a 
caged bird. 

There are things we may never do, being the men and 
women that we are, heights we may never climb, lands we 
may never explore—experiences that may never be ours. All 
the mastery of nature, won for us by the skill of man, cannot 
widen that forlorn horizon. There is only one thing can do 
it for us—experience of God. 

Every Mass is for the soul an experience of God. Every 
Mass is an escape for the soul out of the net. “The snare is 
broken and we are delivered.” God—we sometimes forget— 
is not only a Person but a Country. 

In Catholic worship we escape from that stuffy back attic 
which is self into that open country which is God. The con- 
taining walls are down; our feet are out of the Stocks; we are 
out on the hills where the winds of the spirit blow—not alone 
but in glorious company. 

The priest Standing at the altar has behind him the dark- 
ness, the gloom, the failures, the fetters of our poor humanity. 
Before him Stretches the light and splendour of the Kingdom. 
At that meeting-place of human ith and hope and aspira- 
tion, with the downward sweep of God’s wondrous love and 
power, a marvellous liberation comes to the Christian soul— 
the light floods over into darkened, confused ways of men, 
and we feel within us the fruits of his redemption. “ Who 
maketh us afraid?” “I can do all things through Christ which 
Strengtheneth me.” 

The abiding note of the Mass is the note of joy. “I will 
go unto the altar of God, even to the God of my joy and 
gladness,” says the priest at the altar step. However grey 
may be the skies, it is always sunshine when we come to the 
altar of God. However dark may be the dawn, it is always 
springtime when we approach the Blessed Sacrament. 

Let us then make the Mass the centre of our lives, in joy 


P 209 


Eucharistic Worship 


and in sorrow, the focus of all our activities, because it alone 
gives significance to them all. 


Let the antiphon for the Preparation resound on the Jeit- 
motif of our lives: 


“TI will go unto the altar of God, even to the God of my» 
joy and gladness.” 


3 Il & 
The Sunday Eucharist 


By G. H. CLAYTON 


238 Y purpose in this paper is not theo- 


4 : i) logical. During the Congress you have 
b IN 
CNY \ 






% had put before you by theologians the 
|| various aspects of the Holy Eucharist. 
Neither is it my business to make 
suggestions as to the best way of 
arranging the services in our churches 


when the observance of the rule of Fasting Communion is 
reasonably possible. In other places the main Sunday Eucharist 
will be a service of Corporate Worship, held at a later hour, 
attended mainly by those who have made their Communion 
at an earlier hour. Such arrangements must vary. The one 
thing which is essential is that it should be made clear to all, 
not only by the teaching that is given, but also by the arrange- 
ment and ordering of the services—that the main act of 
Christian worship is the Eucharist. 

To all of us here that is a truism. It is not so to everyone. 
There are very many who think that the Holy Communion is 
so sacred a service that reverence demands that it should be 

210 


The Sunday Eucharist 


celebrated in quiet, in the presence of those only who have 
made careful preparation and who propose to make their 
Communion. To such people a great Eucharistic service, 
with the traditional ceremonial, in the presence of many who 
are not communicants, seems rather vulgar. What are we to 
say to such people? One answer is that our Lord, when he 
took human nature and lived a human life on earth, did not 
withdraw himself from the sight of the multitude. He ex- 
posed his sacred Body to the rough usage and to the blas- 
phemies of men. Again, it is true that the Holy Eucharist is 
indeed a sacred thing. But then any approach to God in 
prayer and worship is a sacred thing. Our purpose is to teach 
the multitude what worship is, that, entering into a church 
which is full of the atmosphere of reverence, they may 
themselves be caught up into a spirit of reverence. That is far 
more likely to happen at a Eucharist than at any other service. 

But such considerations are not the fundamental ones. 
Why do we insist, in the face of much opposition and mis- 
understanding, that the Eucharist must be the great act of 
corporate worship? For most of us, perhaps, it is enough to 
say that so it has seemed good to the Holy Ghost, who has 
taught the Church in every age that the right way to observe 
the Lord’s Day is to assiSt at the Lord’s service, and that 
nothing can take the place of this. But our Lord calls his 
disciples friends, not servants, because they understand what 
their Lord doeth; and I think we can go behind the tradition 
of the Catholic Church, and can ask ourselves why the 
Church has taught what she has taught. The answer is not 
difficult to find. Our only right of access to the Presence of 
God—for prayer, for adoration, for any purpose—is based 
upon the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by his Passion 
has opened to us the road to God. And this fundamental 
truth of our religion is best expressed and made clear to all 
men by Eucharistic worship. For in Eucharistic worship we 
represent before the Father that great Sacrifice, and under 
its shadow approach him ourselves in worship and interces- 
sion. The Eucharist is the great act of Christian worship 
because in its very essence it is an approach to the Father 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. God had taught his people 

211 


Eucharistic Worship 


of old to approach him by the way of sacrifice. It is by the 
way of sacrifice that we must approach him Still. And, 
therefore, on the Lord’s Day we Christians, in our main act 
of worship, approach the Father under the shadow of the 
perfect Sacrifice of Christ. That is what we do in the’ 
Eucharist. 

Some of our fellow-churchmen would admit this. But they 
would say that to make the Eucharist the principal service of 
Sunday morning is to ask too much of our people. It is 
pointed out that there are many who are willing to come to 
Morning Prayer, but who are not willing to join in Eucharistic 
worship. There are, of course, some who conscientiously 
disapprove of the encouragement of non-communicating 
attendance. But I am convinced that the majority of those 
who prefer Morning Prayer do so because the Eucharist 
makes greater demands upon them—not intellectually, but 
spiritually; and those who regard church-going as a kind of 
parade, if there are any such left, certainly prefer Morning 
Prayer. “If there are any such left,” for the conventional 
church-goer is rapidly disappearing. I do not think that con- 
ventional church-going was worthless. But, whether it be 
worthless, or whether it be valuable, it is almost at an end. 
What a priest has to do to-day is to provide a Sunday morning 
service for his people which can both express and Stimulate 
their instinét for worship. He will be wasting his time if he 
tries to provide a service on Sunday morning which is to attract 
the conventional church-goer. There are many, at present 
outsiders, who want some religion, and know religion when 
they see it. We need to provide a service which is such that if 
any of these find their way to it they may become aware that 
this is the real thing. There are two things which are needed if 
that impression is to be produced—first, that the service 
should be one in which something happens; secondly, that 
the congregation should be obviously in earnest. I think there 
is no doubt that the service which is most likely to be used 
by God in converting the outsider is a parish Eucharist. 

This is found to be so in experience, and it is what we 
should expect. For consider what happens in the Eucharist. 
From beginning to end the whole service hinges on the Pre- 

212 


The Sunday Eucharist 


sence of Christ, as Priest, offering a sacrifice; as Victim, for 
the sacrifice is himself. The spiritual world is all around us. 
We partly belong to it and partly to the world of matter. But 
in the Eucharist, we, earthbound as we are, are admitted to 
be present at and to take our part in the great fact of the 
spiritual world—that is, the Sacrifice of Christ, the Son of 
God. In the spiritual world there is no before and after; there 
is no separation caused by space or time. Christ died for us 
on the cross. Christ pleads for us in Heaven. They are parts 
of one act, and here on earth we are admitted into the 
Presence of this Eternal Sacrifice of the Eternal Priest, not 
merely as spectators—as members of his Body we take our 
part with him in the offering of his Sacrifice; and so in the 
Sunday Eucharist we come to worship him who died for us, 
to thank him for dying for us, making thankful remembrance 
of his Death. We come to pray to the Father through Jesus 
Christ our Lord, who takes our feeble prayers and offers them 
with his most perfect prayer to his Father. And we come to 
say that we want to offer ourselves to him for his service, 
because we want to be like Christ, and because we know that, 
so long as we keep close to Christ, even our service will be 
of some use to God in carrying out his purpose for the world. 
And so the Eucharist is the service for the corporate worship 
of a parish. No other service can take its place. It is the 
service for the sinner who is conscious of his sin; it is the 
service for the man who is oppressed by the sinfulness of the 
world; for in it he can cast his sins and the sins of the world 
upon the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. 
It is the service for the philanthropist who wants to serve 
man; for here by contemplation of the Cross, while Calvary 
is enacted before his eyes, he can renew his ideals of self- 
sacrifice, and offer himself to God a living sacrifice in union 
with the Sacrifice of Christ. It is the service for the man 
who wants to pray. For he can unite his prayers with the 
perfect intercession of Christ, the Perfect Intercessor, knowing 
that all that is good in them will be taken by Christ and 
offered by him, purified and strengthened by his sacrifice, be- 
fore the Father’s throne. For here we are taken right to the 
heart of the supreme fact of the spiritual world. And that 
213 


Eucharistic Worship 


is why the Sunday Eucharist is unpopular with people who 
do not like to be brought face to face with realities. There are 
others, indeed, who object to it on grounds which, though 
we believe them to be mistaken, are yet worthy of respect. 
With those objections others, who have read the theological 
papers, have dealt. But in any parish the chief objection 
comes from those to whom religion is one part of the re- 
spectability which is their aim, those to whom the martyrs 
would have seemed fanatical and enthusiasm just a little 
ungentlemanly. And of such objectors the Church, which 
is Christ’s Body, must take as little heed as Christ himself. 

So, then, the Eucharist is to be the principal service of 
Sunday morning. And the Eucharist is a service of offering. 
In it we take our part in the offering of Christ to the Father; 
but in union with him we offer ourselves and all that we have 
and are. And so a parish Eucharist must be the offering of 
all that the parish has and is. It is the people of the place, 
their interests, their offerings, their powers that are to be 
dedicated to God in the parish Eucharist. It is entirely right 
that there should be Catholic cathedral services, in which all 
the beauty of music and art should be employed in the 
worship of God. But in the majority of parishes the Sunday 
Eucharist must be the expression of the worship of the people 
of the place. Sometimes what is lacking is the point of con- 
taét with the people. The service is an attempt at the expres- 
sion of the ideals of the priest, but to the people it seems to 
be in the air, remote from reality, having no relation to them 
and to their lives. It is true that there ought to be something 
of mystery about the service, something unearthly, something 
that they cannot wholly understand. But all the same there 
must be something which they can grip, something homely, 
something belonging to the world they know. The bread and 
wine are to be provided at the charges of the parishioners. 
This is a symbol that the offering is their offering, the praise 
their praise, the prayers their prayers. I do not believe that 
the majority of people in this country will ever feel that this 
is so unless they hear what is going on. They have what 
seems to some of us an unreasonable desire to follow prayers 
in books. The desire may be unreasonable, but it is at any 

214 


The Sunday Eucharist 


rate harmless, and should be gratified. If by the services 
in church the people’s musical taste can be improved, that is 
all to the good. But if the attempt to bring about that de- 
sirable result prevents them from feeling that the praise which 
is offered is their praise, then we are in danger of putting 
culture before religion. I would not be misunderstood. Bad 
music leads to bad religion. Sentimental music leads to senti- 
mental religion. And there is far too much of that to-day. 
Yet simplicity and tunefulness are not necessarily sentimental. 
As to ceremonial, there are more important things than 
liturgical correctitude. And yet it remains true that diverg- 
encies are very unlikely to be improvements, and that a care- 
fully ordered ceremonial is far more impressive and no less 
homely than a slovenly one. There is one other point in con- 
nection with the Sunday Eucharist that seems worth mention- 
ing. The Reformers laid great stress upon the close association 
of the Ministry of the Word with the Ministry of the Sacra- 
ments. I believe that in this point they were clearly right. 
The strength of the Christian Church in her early days was 
that she combined mySteries with morals. Some of her 
rivals were mysStery-religions. Others of her rivals were 
philosophical systems. She combined the Strong points 
of both. She had her mysteries; but with her mysteries she 
had a strong intellectual and historical position, and a stern 
moral law that without holiness no man should see the Lord. 
And the sermon at the Sunday Eucharist should be the safe- 
guard that Christianity does not degenerate into a mere 
mystery-religion. Let no man say that sermons are out of 
date. Many people will only come to church once on a 
Sunday. We say that they must come to the Eucharist. Then 
at the Eucharist they must not only worship, but they must 
be taught. Our Lord is not only Priest and Victim, he is also 
Prophet. And a mark of his kingdom is that the poor have 
the Gospel preached to them. Cranks and heretics of various 
kinds get large and willing audiences. The men and women, 
the boys and girls who worship in our churches have to meet 
all kinds of opposition outside our churches. No opportunity 
should be missed of teaching them and Strengthening them 
in the faith. 


215 


Eucharistic Worship 


One last point. If our Sunday Eucharist is to us no more 
than a beautiful service, if it is just an esthetic satisfaction or 
an emotional thrill, then, indeed, the strictures of our critics 
are justified. But then we have not penetrated to the secret 
of the Catholic Religion. For Sacraments are the outward 
expression of an inward reality, and if the inward reality is 
not there, the outward expression becomes a mockery and a 
sham. Our Sunday Eucharist must be before all things a 
Sacrifice. The inner meaning of the Sacrifice of Christ is 
expressed in the words: “‘ Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” 
It was not his death, but his willingness to die. Its appropriate 
outward expression was his Death on Calvary, the perfeét 
outward expression of a perfect self-oblation. What Christ is, 
the Church must be; for the Church is his Body. If Christ is 
Priest, the Church must be priestly. It was a Presbyterian divine 
who said: “ All who allow that our Lord is a priest in heaven 
must acknowledge the priestliness of the Church on earth.” 
Christ’s priesthood is the offering of himself as a perfect Sacri- 
fice: its outward expression was Calvary, the perfect expression 
of an inward thing which was itself perfect. The Church as 
Christ’s Body is priestly. She needs an outward expression 
and an inward reality of sacrifice. The outward expression is 
the Eucharist. The inward spirit must be her self-oblation to 
the Father. Some say that, provided that there is the inward 
spirit, no outward expression is needed. They are wrong. 
That is contrary to what we know of human life, and it is 
contradicted by the Gospel. For Christ’s inner spirit of self- 
oblation found external expression in the Cross. And the 
Church needs something that is external in order to express 
and Stimulate, through expression, the inward spirit. But 
perhaps there is nothing worse than the survival of the out- 
ward as a form which expresses no inward spirit. For the 
Church to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice when the mark of 
Sacrifice is not on her life is formalism indeed. And for us 
to go to Mass and outwardly to take our part in the Sacri- 
fice, while all the time we are living lives of selfishness and 
self-indulgence, is equally without value. Never let us forget 
that the Mass must be for us the outward expression of an 
inward reality. It is as we remember that the Mass is a sacri- 

216 


The Sunday Eucharist 


fice that we shall find that it will Stimulate in us the spirit of 
self-oblation which it expresses. 

The Church is the Body of Christ. Each congregation is 
a microcosm of the Church. Each congregation is in its 
measure a Body of Christ, set to represent Christ in its district. 
What as a matter of historical fact has been the appeal of 
Christ to the world? It is not the picture of Christ Risen and 
Ascended, enthroned as King of the world. It has been rather 
Christ hanging on his cross. It is the Crucifix which has won 
the hearts of men, Christ dying for the love of men. I do not 
suppose that there is a parish in this country where the Catholic 
Religion is not face to face with odds which are so great that, 
humanly speaking, it has no chance of viétory. Yet we believe 
that the Catholic Religion is going to win. How is it going 
to win? By the same means by which Christ won, by showing 
clearly in the sight of all men the marks of sacrifice. It is 
when we realize that that we see the real significance of the 
Sunday Eucharist—not just a beautiful service with expensive 
vestments and glorious music, but the outward expression of 
that spirit of self-sacrifice which, united with, and purified 
and strengthened by, the perfect sacrifice of Christ, shall in 
his Strength and by his grace win the world for him. 





217 


Concluding Speech 


By tHe BISHOP OF NASSAU (Cuarrman) 


“39 Y very dear friends, my words to you 
q to-night will be very few, but I want 

(to be allowed to begin with one 
personal word. I do not think that 
ever in the whole of my life have I 
dreaded an ordeal so much as this 
which has been thrust upon me of 
being Chairman of an Anglo-Catholic 
RS Gay Ay cx Congress. It was not only because I felt 
myself re 5 be following in the steps of one whose shoe latchet 
I am unworthy to unloose, but because of the extraordinary 
difficulties of the situation in the Church at the present time 
and the responsibility imposed upon one trying to Steer the 
right course. But I must tell you that I have found it all ever 
so much easier than I had dreamed that it possibly could be, 
because of the spirit there has been among you all, and the 
wonderful help that you have given me. I have been very 
conscious all through the Congress of the very careful attention 
that was being paid, and the earnestness and reverence in 
every corner of this vast hall, combined with cheerful good- 
humour. There has not been a note struck, I think, that one 
could have regretted, and it has been a very great delight to 
have the Bishop of Milwaukee beside me. 

You may remember that I ventured to suggest to you at 
the beginning of the Congress a motto which I have tried to 
put before myself, the words with which the priest completes 
the offering at Mass: “ In spiritu humilitatis et in animo con- 
trito suscipiamur a te.” Humility does not mean self-depre- 
ciation; self-depreciation may even be in some ‘cases a subtle 
form of pride. Humility, I think, might be summed up in 
the words: “I can do all things through Christ, who 

218 





Concluding Speech 


Raa me.” Humility is looking up to Christ all the 
while. 

We have had a good deal of Stress laid at one time or 
another upon the greatness of this Congress Movement—what 
a very big thing it has become; and one knows that the Anglo- 
Catholic—I will call it party or school or group, or whatever 
you like—has gained a measure of respect from all quarters 
in the Church of England such as a few years ago it never 
dared to expect. Now there are certain perils in responsibility, 
and I think we shall do well to remember that the greatness 
of this country of ours, its expansion as a worldwide in- 
fluence, has been due to the adventurers—to men who went 
off on lines of their own, and were even disavowed by the 
country, but the fruits of whose labours the country was after- 
wards glad enough to reap. The Bishop of London, when he 
addressed that great missionary meeting the other day, gave 
us a slogan: “The whole Faith for the whole world.” The 
whole Faith. I was very glad that Father Heald, in his appeal 
to-night, emphasized that word “ offensive.” We have got a 
Strong position to-day, we are firmly entrenched in a position 
out of which we cannot be driven, and I, personally, cannot 
understand that there should be in critical times, such as the 
present, any spirit of panic. The fact that we may come up 
against difficulties in the near future ought to call out all the 
best that isin us. But I want to say this—there are more ways 
of fighting than one. We honour the great men of the past 
who fought the battle, the adventurers who went off on 
voyages of their own, discouraged and disavowed, the fruits 
of whose labours we are reaping; but I want you to remember 
this—it was not merely because this priest or that was dis- 
obedient to authority that the battle was won. It was by the 
driving force of his own personal holiness, and it is the 
driving force of personal holiness that we shall need if our 
advance is to be carried forward to a new front line. How 
one longs for the day when one will be able to sce the altars 
of our churches crowded with as many men as women! 

I suppose that one of the natural outcomes of this great 
Eucharistic Congress will be a tremendous growth in the 
membership of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. 

219 


Concluding Speech 


The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament exists, among 
other things, to help those who need a rule of life, and there 
are few of us who really can afford to dispense with a rule 
of life. The Strength of the future lies in more frequent 
communions, in more regular and more thorough confession, . 
and also in the use from time to time of those opportunities of 
listening to the voice of God afforded by a retreat. Dare I 
venture to say to priests of my own generation, and of the 
generation that is coming, that the value of the yearly retreat 
to the priest, for his own soul and for his ministry to his 
people, is beyond anything that words can express? And the 
same is true for the laymen. We talk about, and we apply 
words about, devotion to the Lord Jesus in the most Holy 
Sacrament at Mass, or at other times. How are we showing 
our devotion to the Lord Jesus as a pattern of conduét—our 
devotion to the Lord Jesus as the mainstay of life? How we 
all honour the name of Lord Halifax for what he has done 
for the Catholic Revival! We know that he is a man of 
singularly brilliant intelleét, but it is not brilliant intelleét that 
has helped him to make the contribution that he has made 
to the life of our Church; it is his real devotion to our Blessed 
Lord, and his personal holiness. And you may be quite sure 
that, just as legislation must always register the public 
opinion of its day, when the demand for the lifting of 
restrictions which may fence in our liberty of Adoration 
comes from 10,000 men who are monthly penitents and weekly 
communicants, there will be no force in the Church to with- 
Stand it. 

And now I am going to ask you to rise and say with me 
the Divine Praises, after which I shall give you the Blessing, 
and I shall venture to use those same words which the Bishop 
of Zanzibar used on the last occasion in England, because | 
think he would wish me to do so, and I long to have the 
privilege. 


220 





Appendix 


I 


ADDRESS BY THE REVD. FATHER 
HUGHSON, O.H.C. 
(At the Wednesday morning Meeting in the Albert Hall) 


OR practically a thousand years after Christ 
> ; no doubt of the Real Presence of our Lord 
Cen) |G YAn’c6® in the Sacrament of the Altar seems to have 
‘ been entertained. This fact is the more sig- 





: i Pets 
oF | ONT, ~ nificant because during that period almost 
WE IG \E every heresy which the perversity of man 
Oy S/O @) could conceive, or the ingenuity of the devil 
AG S25 could invent, was set forth. Arius emascu- 
GF cul G lated Christianity of its essential life by 
5 Ge 2) du) making the Second Person of the Adorable 
Ae ST NDA, Trinity a creature. Nestorius and Eutyches 


nullified the Incarnation by their heresies. 
Even the very existence of the Holy Ghost was impugned, and yet none 
of these heretics seems to have doubted that, when the tremendous a¢tion 
of the Eucharist was accomplished, the Incarnate Word was really and 
objectively present in the Sacrament. 

But now for nine hundred years men have not ceased to contend over 
this great subject, and the fact that we are to-day asked to consider it 
shows how prominent the controversy is in men’s minds. It is not my 
cag wet however, in this brief rans to enter upon any philosophical 
or theological discussion of the dogma of the Real Presence. I purpose, 
in as simple language as I can command, to deal with certain aspects of 
this great truth in such a manner as will, I think, give it a deeper and 
more practical devotional value in our lives. 

Let us, before attempting any definition of the Real Presence, give a 
few moments to the consideration of the objection often made that, since 
the Church has never in her great ecumenical councils given any such 
definition, we should not attempt to define anything as necessary to the 
faith concerning the fact of the Eucharistic Presence. Those who make 
this objection display their misunderstanding of the method the Catholic 
Church has always employed in her definitions of the faith. The original 
divine revelation of facts made by our Lord was sufficient until men 
221 


Appendix 


arose who denied certain articles of the faith. Under these circumStances, 
and under these only, were the great definitions of the faith made. 
Now, as we have remarked, the Real Presence was never denied, even 
by heretics, until an age when the unhappy division of eastern and 
western Christendom made a General Council impossible. The early 
Church defined nothing about the Eucharist because no truth concerning 
the Eucharist was impugned. There was no serious Eucharistic heresy 
as such in the Church of the Fathers. Here and there some obscure 
person might have offered suggeStions of false dodtrine such as that 
which was referred to St. Cyril of Alexandria on one occasion by a 
certain correspondent. These innovations suggested that the divine 
Presence in the Sacrament was temporary, and that the Sacrament 
consecrated to-day would not be the Sacrament if kept till the morrow. 
St. Cyril’s explosive manner of responding might not be regarded as 
kind or gracious in our day of softer controversial method, but it was 
effective. ‘‘ They are mad!” he exclaimed of these objections. But these 
occasions of doubt were few and far between, and the doubters had no 
following. 

Those who, because nothing was defined by a General Council, would 
insist that nothing was held in the early centuries concerning the 
Eucharist as necessary to the faith, to be logical should also hold that, 
until the Church bore her witness in the Council of Nicza in 325, 
nothing was held as necessary to the faith concerning the Incarnation 
and the Person of Christ. 

Let us understand clearly and permit no doubt in our minds that 
there is a Catholic belief concerning the Blessed Sacrament, which is a 
necessary part of the Christian Faith. One has only to glance at the New 
Testament to realize that no other conclusion can be called sane. Our 
Lord laid it down categorically and without any sort of qualification: 
“Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his Blood, ye 
have no life in you.” Following upon this declaration, the Church has 
ever held that the reception a the Blessed Sacrament is, along with 
Baptism, necessary to salvation. Now let us ask this question: Is it 
conceivable that our dear Lord would have promulgated in so solemn a 
manner a certain thing as necessary to the saving of our souls, and then 
have left us totally at sea as to what that thing was, and what we were 
to believe concerning it? 

But there are those, and they are not a few, who talk to us about the 
distinctive teaching of the Anglican Church. Distinctive from what? 
From the rest of Catholic Christendom? They forget that the moment 
any part of the Catholic Church adopts a do¢trine or a position regarding 
the necessary faith which is distinctive from the rest of the Church, in 
that moment it involves itself in false doctrine, if not in formal heresy. 
The Catholic seeks to align himself always with the Church throughout 
the world, never to be distinguished from it. What, then, is this revela- 
tion concerning the Real Presence, which we believe to be a necessary 
part of the Catholic Faith? It is simply that where a validly ordained 
priest of the Church consecrates bread and wine to be the Body and 


222 


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al ee 


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Blood of Christ, Incarnate God becomes really and objectively present 
in that Sacrament. Further, we believe that this Presence is effected at a 
given moment in time by the Holy Ghost through the consecration— 
that is, through the words and acts of the earthly priest. And this 
Presence is in no sense dependent upon the faith either of the priest 
officiating, or of the people participating. The priest may not himself 
believe in the Presence, but if he Hie consecrates the bread and wine, 
according to the divine institution, Christ is present upon that consecra- 
tion. It is analogous to Baptism. The officiating minister may deny 
that the child is regenerated in baptism, but this does not mean that the 
children he baptizes have to be baptized again in order to become 
regenerated. It were monstrous to think that an ignorant or wicked want 
of personal faith on the part of the minister could invalidate the work 
of the Holy Ghost, who is the real agent in all the Sacraments. 

Most men, whether Catholic or Protestant, recognize that in some 
sense, however remote or indirect, there is a Presence in connection with 
the Eucharist. But by some strange mental perversion they quote as 
against the Church’s Eucharistic faith her own words—that “ the Body 
of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly 
and spiritual manner.” 

It may seem to some of you a little out of date to quote the Thirty- 
nine Articles. Some of them, these near four hundred years, have been 
indeed a burden grievous to be borne. But I am not one of those who 
think that, taken as a whole, they are the forty Stripes save one, laid on 
the back of a long-suffering Church. Some of them, as they deal with 
the great fundamental verities of the Godhead, the Incarnation, and the 
Atonement, are magnificent expositions of the Nicene Faith. 

Nor am I inclined to sweep away too indiscriminately their sacra- 
mental teaching, and so I should like to meet this objection based upon 
the Article, for I think that the Catholic Church is prepared to stand 
squarely on this statement. But she says this not because the term 
“heavenly and spiritual,” describing the Eucharistic Presence, means 
something vague and unsubstantial. Not so is the word “ spiritual ” 
employed in the terminology of our holy religion. The expression is 
used to State the same objectivity and reality as that which our Lord 
meant when he said: “God is spirit, and they that worship him must 
worship him in spirit and in truth.” If we mean the objectivity and 
reality of the Godhead when we say “God is spirit,” then we mean 
the objectivity and reality of the divine Presence when we say that God 
Incarnate, both divine and human, is spiritually present in the Sacrament 
of the Altar. It were in a certain real sense an atheistic position to say 
that God is existent or non-existent, according to whether a man believes 
in him or desires him. Likewise, it is quite as impossible to say that our 
Lord’s presence or non-presence in the Eucharist is dependent on my 
believing or not believing. Man cannot make and unmake God’s 
existence or presence in any such fashion as this. It is an issue of fact: 
either he is present or he is not present; and what I believe has no 
effect upon that fact as such. 


223 


Appendix 


Further, the Church says that he is present “‘ after an heavenly and 
spiritual manner,” because the most real, substantial, objective, and en- 
during things are not those which are material and earthly, but those 
which are “heavenly and spiritual.” Again, in saying that Christ is 
present in the Blessed Sacrament “after a heavenly and spiritual 


manner,” the Church means to emphasize that Christ is present, not as . 


he was in the days of his earthly pilgrimage, not under the conditions in 
which he was compassed about with our infirmities, but as he is now, 
risen, ascended, glorified at the right hand of his Father in heaven. 

This, indeed, must be true for the reason that our Lord has but one 
body. In different Stages of his Incarnate Life that Body exists under 
different conditions. On earth it could grow weary, hungry, and thirsty. 
That Body, as St. Augustine says, when and how and as he willed it, 
could die. That Body suffered on the Cross, was dead and buried, but 
he rose again the third day in that same Body. He gave to it the super- 
natural quality of the resurrection Body, and bore it at his Ascension 
into Heaven, where he was glorified at his Father’s right hand with the 
glory that was his before the world was. It is this glorified Body of 
Christ, which is present in the Sacrament. Therefore we say that he is 
present in the Eucharist “after an heavenly and spiritual manner.” The 
objectivity and reality of that human Body of Christ, under other modes 
or conditions, is the same as the objectivity and reality of his Presence 
in the Blessed Sacrament. If this Incarnation was real, if his life of 
earthly ministry was real, if the glory of the ascended Lord is real, then 
is the Presence of our Blessed Christ in the Blessed Sacrament real. 
Whatever changes in growth and development that Body enjoyed in this 
world, whatever might be involved in the mystery of its glorification in 
heaven, this same Body, in which dwelt and dwells all the fulness of 
the Godhead, risen, ascended, glorified, is present in the most Holy 
Sacrament just as truly as he was present in the Virgin’s womb, just as 
objectively and really as he was present in the manger at Bethlehem, in 
the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, along the Galilean highways, on the 
cross; precisely as really and objectively as he is present at his Father’s 
right hand in heaven. 

But men ask: “‘ How does he come? In what manner is that glorified 
Body present?” I refer to this perennial question only to say that I have 
no intention of trying to give it an answer. It is right and necessary 
that there should be study and speculation concerning these subjects, 
but for us practical Christian folk, seeking to know the well-certified 
facts of our religion, and to govern our faith and consequent action 
according to those facts, it is wiser that we should take the simple truth 
as it has been revealed, without Copvnae to justify the ways of God 
to man. Nearly all the heresies of the ages have arisen out of the effort 
to explain God’s plans and method, the effort to force the divine, infinite 
mysteries within the narrow, finite compass of human thought and 
language. It was the yet unconvinced Nicodemus who asked: “‘ How 
can these things be?” It was the unbelieving Jews of Capernaum who 
demanded to know “ how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The 


224 





Appendix 


humble Christian never inquires “How?” His one question is 
““What?”—not impertinently inquiring how God can do thus and 
thus, but ever seeking to know what it is that God in his tender love 
has revealed for us to believe and practise for his honour and for our 
souls’ good. Without doubt, our Lord could have given a clear and 
convincing reply to the Jews of Capernaum, but their human and finite 
minds would not have understood. A mathematician might give to an 
intelligent three-year-old child a complete and lucid demonstration of 
some problem in higher mathematics, but the mind of the child would 
grasp nothing. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
bear them now.” Well might we apply these words of the divine 
Master to ourselves in considering the Real Presence. It may be that the 
day will come when, no longer seeing in a glass darkly, we shall know 
how these things can be. But now in the days of our earthly pilgrimage, 
humbly acknowledging our limitations, we believe as little children, and, 
believing, we adore. 

Through nine centuries, during which there has been rarely a genera- 
tion of truce in the Eucharistic controversy, men have sought to fathom 
the mystery of the manner of the Presence. There are many suggested 
explanations. We hear of transvaluation; there is transenergization; our 
dear old Bishop Andrewes preferred transmutation. Then there is the 
doctrine of transubstantiation, but if a man ask that we accept it as a 
necessary part of our Eucharistic Creed, the reply might reasonably be 
made: “ Define your terms; tell me what is meant by substance.” And, 
when we come to the philosophers, to secure that definition, we find that, 
like their brethren on Mars Hill in St. Paul’s time, some say one thing 
and some another; and some categorically deny the existence of any 
substance at all. I therefore think tae plain men, unused to the jargon 
of the schools, should not be pressed too far if they hesitate to mae this 
theory a definite part of their religion. 

However, he would. be rash indeed who rejected that which the 
Catholic Church, both East and Wet, has formally approved, and which 
no formulary of the Anglican Church has ever repudiated; for we must 
remember that our Article of Religion, so often ignorantly quoted, 
cannot be said to impugn the do¢trine of transubStantiation held by 
the Eastern and the Latin Churches, for that Article was written before 
the Councils of Trent and Jerusalem reviewed that dodtrine and gave it 
its present form. 

ut, argue this as you may, the fact of the Real Presence does not 
depend upon any theory. Amidst all contending opinions, amidst the 
subtlest distinctions of philosophers, one Bit truth stands in bold 
relief : in every Mass the Holy Ghost, who is the agent in the Sacrament, 
eiaetk the consecration—that is, the divinely commanded words and 
acts of the priest—as an instrument whereby at an exact point of time 
he induces such definite change that “ our Lord Jesus Christ, true God 
and true Man, is truly, really, and substantially contained [we are not 
the least afraid of these Tridentine words] under the species of these 
sensible things.” And if he is present at all he must be wholly present; 


Q 225 


Appendix 
Christ cannot be divided. Nothing that belongs to the God-Man can be 
absent. He is there, all that he is and all that he has. All that in time 
he took in the womb of Mary, all that for eternity has been his as the 
second person of the Ever-Blessed Trinity, is enthroned on the lowliest 
altar where lies this august Sacrament. Hidden beneath these lowly 
appearances of bread and wine is the Son of Mary; dwelling in this 
ineffable Mystery is the Lord Jehovah, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
for ever. That Humanity and that Deity at the moment of the Incarna- 
tion were united, never again to be separated, and it is this Second 
Person in the Godhead in his two natures, divine and human, who thus 
condescends to dwell amongst us that we might know and believe his 
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth. 


What, then, does this tremendous mystery involve for us? Everything. 
In the moment in which the consecration of the bread and wine is 
accomplished, the Sacrifice of the Altar is effected. In the moment in 
which the sacrificial Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the 
world becomes present on the altar, in that moment “the one, true, 
pure, immortal Sacrifice”? of Calvary is offered. In that moment, what 
is being done by us at the earthly altar becomes identified, one and the 
same thing, with the ceaseless action in heaven, where our Lord is 
pleading perpetually his Sacrifice on Calvary for the honour of his 
Father and the needs of the world. The Eucharistic Sacrifice depends 
upon the Presence of him who is both Priest and Offering, for in this 
Sacrifice at the hands of the earthly priest “ the God-priest offers to God 
the God-Victim.” Therefore without the Eucharistic Presence there can 
be no Eucharistic Sacrifice. 

Then we come to the consideration of our worship, and a simple 
consideration it is. Wherever God is, there he is to be adored. God 
dwells in the Blessed Sacrament, therefore in that Sacrament he is to be 
worshipped. And this worship is no modified thing, to be hedged about 
with cautions and inhibitions. Do we expect to fall down in utter adora- 
tion before the Eternal Trinity in heaven if by God’s grace we come to that 
blessed place? Then let us learn now the worship of the heavenly courts, 
for the identical adoration which is given him in heaven by the saints 
and angels is to be given him wherever he dwells on his earthly altar. 
No essential difference can be made between God in the Eucharist and 
God who dwells high and uplifted on the throne of heaven. 

We have thought of what it is the dear Lord has ordained and 
commanded; we have noted certain considerations of how these things 
might be. One more question remains: Why? Why are his delights 
with the sons of men whose sins and offences are so grievous and con- 
tinual a wound to his Sacred Heart? Only one answer can be found. 
Because he loves us with an everlasting love. Only thus can we account 
for this amazing thing. And what is to be our response to this love? 
Let us so direct our words and actions that men may know not only of 
the joy and blessing his Presence is to his people, but also that they may 
know what is often forgotten and too rarely taught—namely, the 


226 


Appendix 


ineffable privilege of giving joy to him who awaits our coming with a 
heart hungry for our love. Let us teach men these things by showing our- 
selves as foremost amongst those to whom his Presence is precious; and 
out of the dullest spirit will spring the finest flower of personal devotion, 
and a fire will be enkindled which will leap from heart to heart until 
the whole world be aflame with the warmth and glory of his love. 


II 


ADDRESS BY THE REVD. G. D. ROSENTHAL 
(At the Wednesday evening Meeting in the Albert Hall) 


The one aim which the Anglo-Catholic Congress Movement has kept 
Steadily before it from the very first is the conversion of men and women 
to our Lord Jesus Christ. It is with that end in view that the present 
Congress is being held to proclaim the faith of the Church as touching 
the most holy Sacrament of the Altar, and to exhibit and increase our 
devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy MySteries. We believe that 
there is no other means for the conversion of men so divinely powerful 
as the Holy Mass, the centre of immutable truth, the living casket of 
that Blessed Mystery of Faith which is enshrined on our altars and is 
called Emmanuel. There is no surer instrument whereby they can be 
brought back to God in penitence and faith than the manifestation of 
the love of God in this incomparable Mystery. The Incarnation and the 
Cross saved the world of EP it is the Incarnation and the Cross 
extended, applied, proclaimed in the Blessed Eucharist, which will save 
England to-day. 

To-night we meet for a Social, and it is therefore fitting that we 
should think of the social aspect of the Holy Sacrament. If in its 
Godward aspect it is a great act of sacrificial worship, in its manward 
aspect it is a great act of fellowship. Christ, in and through his Sacra- 
ment, is the bond of union to the whole Church, and as we gather round 
the altar and receive his Body and his Blood we are united to him, and 
through union with him we are united to one another. Viewed in this 
way, the Mass is a great Brotherhood Meeting, at which we enter into 
fellowship with the whole Church—Militant, Expectant, Triumphant. 
Grant Duff, in his “ Notes from a Diary,” tells the story of an old priest 
who was trudging home through pelting rain after early Mass on All 
Saints’ Day, when he was met by a parishioner, who said: “ How 
many did you have at Mass this morning, father?” “ Millions, 
millions,” was the reply. It was a true and an adroit answer, for when- 
ever the Holy Bacrice is offered there is always a great communion, 
though the visible worshippers are but a handful. Patriarchs and 
Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, Martyrs, and all the Holy Souls who 
have departed this life in the faith and fear of Christ, all faithful 


227 


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Christians in every corner of the world—this is the real congregation in 
the Holy Communion, or Holy Fellowship, into which we, too, enter 
as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. As John Keble beautifully 
sings : 
“No distance breaks the tie of blood, 

Brothers are brothers evermore, 

Nor Wrath nor wrong of deadliest mood 

That magic may o’erpower. 

Oft, ere e common source be known 

The kindred drops will claim their own 

And throbbing pulses silently 

Move heart towards heart by sympathy. 

So is it with true Christian hearts; 

The mutual share in Jesus’ blood 

An everlasting bond imparts 

Of holiest brotherhood.” 


There is no doubt that in the Church it was the social side of the 
Eucharist, in which noble and slave drank of the same Cup, that broke 
down distinctions of race and class, and brought about a realization of 
liberty, fraternity, and equality such as no other revolution has ever 
succeeded in producing. Is that what the Holy Communion means for 
us to-day? Does it strike the imagination as the speaking symbol of a 
fellowship that reconciles national and racial differences, and unites men 
into a great brotherhood through the common sharing of the life of 
Christ? Must we not confess to our shame that it is not so? We have 
largely lost hold of the social idea of the Mass; we are apt to think of 
the Blessed Sacrament in an individualistic way, as if it were simply the 
means of obtaining grace and help for our own spiritual needs; we talk 
commonly of going to receive my Communion, instead of our Com- 
munion, our fellowship, not only with Christ, but with each other. As 
a result the Church is conspicuously failing in its greatest task—that of 
presenting to the world the inspiring spectacle of an all-embracing 
Brotherhood. It is not only that the fellowship between the various parts 
of the Church is broken; the evil goes far deeper than that. Even in an 
ordinary Catholic congregation there is, as a rule, little sense among the 
worshippers that they all belong to one another, because through the 
Holy Communion they are all united in Christ. We allow people to 
claim our acquaintance on the ground that they were at the same school 
or college; that is everywhere regarded as a bond of union. So, too, 
among Freemasons there is a very real bond of fraternity which makes 
them feel that they are brothers whenever and wherever they meet. But 
about our religion we seem to be incurably individualistic. We go to 
church with our particular friends, and sit in our Peete place, being 
very much annoyed if anyone else has got there first. We say our own 
prayers and pay our own respects to God. But we do not feel concerned 
with the people in the next pew, unless they sing out of tune, when we 
brace ourselves to the extreme measure of turning round to Stare at 


228 


Appendix 


them. And this at the great service which is intended to bind us all 
together in living, loving fellowship! 

I am persuaded that one of our chief needs to-day is to restore and 
emphasize this social idea of the Eucharist, which has for so long been 
overlaid, neglected and forgotten. Without Christ’s Life given to us in 
the Blessed Sacrament we are like so many individual atoms, crowded 
together like grains on a sand-heap, particle clinging to particle, and so 
forming a show of solidarity, but having no vital connection the one 
with the other. But when we kneel around the altar and share together 
his Body and his Blood, we become like iron filings gathered round a 
magnet, where each holds fast to all the rest by the pervading power of 
the magnetic influence that fills them all. 

Let us, then, go forth from this inspiring Congress filled with 
a new spirit of fellowship in Christ, and resolved to present our 
religion to the world as the visible embodiment of ideal human 
brotherhood. The first Step to that end is that we ourselves should 
receive the Blessed Sacrament regularly and frequently. Though the 
Catholic Revival has resulted in a wonderful increase of Com- 
munion, there is much leeway to make up, and we are Still far 
below the Standard in this respect which obtains in the rest of the 
Western Church. Secondly, we must do everything we possibly can to 
foster the wider conception of churchmanship which the Congress 
Movement has already Abie so much to develop. Our fellowship is Still 
being gravely hindered by petty congregationalism—an idea that if 
Catholic privileges are provided for us in the church we attend, all is 
for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Congregationalism is only - 
one step in advance of individualism; it gives a man a narrow outta 
and cramps his activities; it makes him think that Christian fellowshi 
is only to be found in a narrow coterie of like-minded people. And, 
let me add, Anglo-Catholicism itself is a snare and a dalusied if we 
conceive of it as a special revelation given to the Anglo-Saxon race. The 
fellowship in which God has called us is no less than the One Holy 
Catholic Church dispersed throughout the world. It may be necessary 
under present conditions to call ourselves Anglo-Catholics; I think it is. 
But I am sure we shall be wise to write the “ Anglo-” very small and 
the “Catholic” as large as possible. Lastly, while Standing firm as a 
rock in defence of that blessed Faith of which we are at once the 
inheritors and the trustees, let us try to live in charity, sympathy, and 
good humour with those who do not agree with us. I am perfectly 
certain that I am expressing the feeling of this Congress when I say 
that our message to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and 
truth is a message of good will. We do not seek to denounce, to 
condemn, to exclude, but to convince, to persuade, to attract. Behind all 
our controversies we feel the divine bond of brotherhood which makes 
us all members of one another. In the spirit of him whom we receive 
at the altar, we long for fellowship, af are resolved to work and to 
pray for it. That points the true road to the conversion of England. 
Far more than that, it is a Step on the road to the reunion of the whole 


229 


Appendix 


Catholic Church of Christ, and to that of which the reunited Church 
will itself be but a sacrament and a prophecy—the solidarity of the 
human race, the universal fellowship of the human spirit, which will one 
day mark the climax of the unfolding drama of God’s purpose for the 
world, when reality shall at last touch hands with the poet’s ideal : 


‘And the Stranger hath seen in the Stranger his brother at last 
And his sister. in eyes that are strange.” 


When, in the name and power of Jesus, the great walls on the common 
of life that now separate man from his brother will all come tumbling 
down. 


Ill 


ADDRESS BY SIR HENRY SLESSER, K.C., M.P. 
(At the Wednesday evening Meeting in the Albert Hall) 


During this week those of you who have attended this Congress 
know that a most exhaustive reverent Study has been given to the great 
mystery of the Blessed Sacrament. To-night, I understand, we are to 
be rather more general in dealing with our subject. But sometimes the 
unlearned (in which category I include yourselves and myself) as dis- 
tinguished from our expert theological advisers, see certain aspects of 
daily life which, perhaps, do not impress themselves quite so closely on 
those who concentrate more critically upon the problems of our faith. 
I feel very Strongly that we are suffering at the present time from a 
breakdown of any standard by which we can conduct our lives; we have 
lost the great gift of certainty. People to-day find it difficult to say what 
is right or what is wrong. They cannot tell you which pictures are 
beautiful and which are ugly. They cannot tell you what is wisdom or 
what is mere cleverness. In other words, as it seems to me, and as it 
must seem to you, our moral and esthetic Standards are in anarchy. 
And it is our belief that this confusion is due to decay of faith. Indeed, 
I will go so far as to say that, given the unbelief which has been growing 
with increased momentum during the last four centuries, the results we 
see around us to-day were inevitable. In one sense, indeed, people still 
retain a feeling of certainty. A man said to me the other day: “ There 
is one thing certain, anyhow: that there will not be a total eclipse for 
ninety years.” But of course all these things—when an eclipse is coming, 
whether you are going to catch the next bus, whether our friends are 
going to get home to-night—all these things are not really certainties at 
all, not in the ultimate sense of the word. By “certainty” I mean 
something much more essential. The great philosopher Plato 
pointed out, many years ago, that there are only nee certainties of 
which we have assurance in this world—goodness, beauty, and truth. 
These are the eternal realities of life which the Catholic Faith can. 


230 


Appendix 


reStore to us. We mutt learn not to be ashamed of being dogmatic; an 
open mind is like Pandora’s box, from which all the gifts had flown 
away. Again, we mutt assert the realities, for we have an assurance of 
what those realities are. We have to attack many false assumptions which 
are commonplaces to-day—that conduct is a mere matter of tempera- 
ment or climate; that what is right in one place is wrong in another; that 
artistic sense is a matter of taste, or even that truth is a mere matter of 
opinion. We have to fight this whole disease of pragmatism and 
relativity. One of the fathers here, a few days ago, said: “ The great 
difference between us and the modern pagan world is that they say that 
man is the measure of all things, and we say that God is the measure of 
all things.”” Once we have regained our feeling of need for a definite 
Standard of right or wrong, surely we shall persuade the world to find 
that Standard in the life of our Lord. To a people so instructed we need 
not be at pains to argue against usury, divorce, or social or national 
hatreds. We can say that these things are, by our religion, specifically 
forbidden, and therefore, Standing, as we do, on a firm credal ees ina 
world where most people are equivocating and doubtful, we shall have a 

ower and Strength quite out of proportion to our numbers, in that we 
ee conviction and they have not. 

We find the world in hopeless conflict, bewilderment, and confusion; 
I cannot think of any fundamental idea which is not challenged, 
criticized and belittled in some quarter or another. Therefore we, whose 
faith Stands on a rock, must go forward undeviatingly in definite assur- 
ance and knowledge. That assurance which we have and others have not 
is the gift of faith; it is given to us by the Holy Spirit. The important 
thing to realize is this—that our certainty comes to us because we 
believe that the Kingdom of God can be found in the things of this 
world. That is the great work which the Catholic Faith does in the 
Blessed Sacrament; it mediates between the perfect Godhead and the 
world, and brings down into the world the Eternal Perfection of heaven. 
That, as I understand it, in my untrained, lay, untheological mind, is 
implicit in the meaning of the Blessed Sacrament. It canalizes perfection 
and exhibits it in one relative. As the artist seeks to produce the 
eternal in the beauty of his pictures, the saint in his conduct seeks to 
emulate eternal righteousness, and the sage seeks, in his wisdom, to 
realize eternal truth, so the Catholic Faith throughout the ages has 
mediated between eternity and the relative—it is our task to bring into 
this world this vision of eternity—to promote on earth. That is what 
makes the Catholic Faith, not only so certain, but so practical. 

The responsibility which attaches to this great mission is, in every 
sense of the word, Catholic; in so far as the whole of the activities of 
man are to be mediated from eternity, there is no human a¢tivity which 
the Catholic can safely ignore. What makes the medizval great age of 
faith—the eleventh and twelfth centuries—so profoundly interesting and 
instructive to us is not so much its practice, because men were sinners 
then as always, but the attempt to carry the eternal verities, through the 
medium of the Church, into the aild. 


231 


Appendix 


We must be fearless; in the last resort we have to declare that the 
Church is more important than the State. I would not be misunderstood. 
I believe that the State, like the family, is a normal human institution; 
that the proper secular authority proceeding on Christian assumptions is 
to be obeyed; the view that the State has no place in Christian life is 
absurd and wrong. We have to fight that notion which has grown up - 
since the Reformation—that the State, or Parliament, or the lawyers, or 
the Civil Servants, or any secular institution, is the final test of authority 
and reality in this world. When the Church was dethroned at the 
Reformation, the King was substituted; when the King was dethroned 
in the person of Charles I., Parliament was substituted; later the 
Executive Government was substituted for Parliament—as we who 
tramp through the lobbies to-day well know! What particular secular. 
power will be substituted next I do not know. I have heard it said that 
the Civil Servants in Whitehall will govern us, but I am inclined to 
think that we shall ultimately be governed by financiers and do¢tors, for 
if we are not careful we shall all be compulsorily subjected to monetary 
or surgical operations. It is all wrong. The State is important only in so 
far as it is a State to promote the Kingdom of God on earth. As 
Aristotle said, “ The State exists that men may lead a good life,” it is 
not an ultimate reality. But what distinguishes Catholics from others, 
and makes them unpopular, is that they alone believe the Church 
to be a divine institution. If there is one thing of which I am 
certain it is this—that the Church is not only divine, but inherently 
perfect, although Churchmen are very often imperfect. If one is to 
believe in the Sacraments, it is necessary to believe that the Bride of 
Christ is a perfect institution. It is an institution to mediate between us 
and eternity. Man is thus provided in this world with all the guidance 
which he may reasonably need; the reason why these great media- 
tions have proved so uncertain in the past is because he will not accept 
from God the great benefits and bounty which God has conferred upon 
him. Let us set out with this assurance: neither relativity nor 
pragmatism will in the end satisfy us. We must cling to the Church and 
its authority, and in that we shall find our safety. 


ENGLISH 
CHURCH UNION 


THE ENGLISH CHURCH UNION still maintains 
the unique position which it has occupied for seventy 
years in the Catholic Movement. 


It devotes its enormous resources to the steadfast defence 
of Catholic Doctrine and Discipline, and persists in up- 
holding the claim of the Church of England to be an 
integral part of the whole Catholic Church of Christ.’ 


It has devoted itself, through its Literature Committee, 
to the production of literature in all branches of | 
Theology and Ethics. 


Early next year it will publish a One-Volume Catholic 
Commentary on the whole Bible, which ought to be of 
invaluable service to the cause, 


The Union, through its Legal Committee and by means 
of its great financial resources, is able to afford counsel, 
protection, and assistance to all persons, lay or clerical, 
who may be assailed in any spiritual matter. 


In all its activities the Union seeks to co-operate with 
all other Catholic Societies, and looks forward hopefully 
to the day when all such Societies may be united and 
work together under one leadership for the support of 
Catholic Principles and Practice. 


Conditions of Membership : Membership is open to all 
members of the Church of England and of Churches in 
Communion with her who are communicants, and the 
membership is graduated as follows: Full Members, 1os. 
a year ; Associates, 2s. 6d. ; and Adherents, Is. 


The Church Union Gazette is published monthly at the 
incredibly low price of 1s. 6d. per annum, post free. 
31 RussELL SQUARE ARNOLD PINCHARD 

W.C. 1 Secretary. 
233 











TISTS ¢ CRAFTSMEN 
inECCLESIASTIALART 


Designs submmilied on application 


<8} EXETER Ghecarye 
2 LONDON 2ater* 
) MANGIESIER 222 













The Association for Promoting 

Retreats has been engaged since 
@ © °e . F 

1912 1” the important work of 


urging the need of stlence and solitude, and of bringing 
Retreats within the reach of all, 


IT MAINTAINS TWO RETREAT HOUSES 
(S. Ursula’s, Chiswick, and S. George’s, Highgate.) 
IT ARRANGES MEETINGS AND SERMONS 


IT PROVIDES “DEMONSTRATION” RETREATS 
(For Clergy desiring to become Conductors. ) 


IT PUBLISHES AN ANNUAL LIST OF RETREATS 


IT ISSUES A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE 
(The Vision, 1s. 6d. per annum.) 


IT CIRCULATES LITERATURE, and 
IT THEREFORE APPEALS FOR HELP 


All information can be obtained from the SECRETARY, A.P.R., 243 ABBEY 
HousE, VICTORIA STREET, LONDON, S.W. 1. TZelephone: Victoria 9571 





234 


MISS MARJORIE BECKH 


Decorations—Color Schemes, 
Altar Hangings & Furniture 
Vestments 


Italian, Renaissance, Gothic 
Tapestries, Brocades, Russian Cloth of Gold 


Address 
20 THURLOE PLACE, S.W. 7 


(One minute from South Kensington Station) 


Telephone : Western 4431 


Estimates on application 





Society of the Sacred Mission, Kelham 


N view of the shortage of Ordinands, and the large number of men desiring 
I Ordination who are prevented by lack of means from fulfilling their vocation, the 
S.S.M. maintains a Theological College at Kelham. During the past year it 
received 324 enquiries from men desiring Ordination, most of them unable to pay for 
their training. J With its present buildings the College can only accept about thirty 
men yearly. The Society aims at increasing the College from 85 to 300 students, and 
in order to appeals for an 


EXTENSION FUND OF 475,000 
425,200 of this has already been given ; and work to enlarge the College to take 140 
students is almost complete. 


The Society also asks for £6,000 this year to maintain the 110 students at present 
in residence, and for £7,500 in 1928 for 140 students. 


The principles governing the work at Kelham are: 
(i) The selection of the best men, regardless of their financial resources ; 
(ii) A thorough testing of motives and training of character (five years’ minimum); 


(iii) A study of historic Christian Theology as the ‘‘ Science of Sciences,” and its 
significance as the key to the meaning of all life ; 


(iv) Simplicity of life, shared with the Community. 


Please make cheques pay&able to the Director, The Rev. Recinatp H. Trise, S.S.M., Kelham 
Newark, Notts. Bankers : Westminster Bank, Ltd., Newark, Notts, S.S.M. Extension Fund (07 for 
Maintenance, S.S.M. College Fund). For Literature and all information apply to: The Warden 
The Rev. SterHen F. B. Bepavr), ox The Secretary, House of the Sacred Mission, Kelham 

ewark, Notts. Sept., 1927. 


235 


Your support EVANGELICAL 


TRAINING COLLEGES 


1§ needed EVANGELISTS & MISSION SISTERS 
MISSION VANS 
by he BAe PRISON MISSIONS 
MARCHING CRUSADERS 
&c., &c, | 
SOCIAL, 
ON TRIBUODRTONG 
MEN AND Rubst ge HOMES gratefully received by 
DISABLED MEN’S INDUSTRIES Byahis Carlile, CH, DD. 
CLUBS AND SOCIAL CENTRES Hon. Chief Secretary, 55 


RESCUE AND PREVENTIVE HOMES 
OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT 
&c., &c. 


Bryanston Street, W. 1. 


Cheques crossed “ Barclays, 
alc Church Army.” 











THE GREEN QUARTERLY 


is the only illustrated Church magazine. 
It ought to be regularly taken by every 
Church family in every church club or 
institute, It should be on sale on every 
Church bookstall. 


PRICE Is. ; postage, 1d. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, 4s. 6d. post free. 


im 
At all booksellers, and 
THE: SOCIETY “OF? SS: PETER ¢7° PAUL VE be 
Westminster House | 
8 GREAT SMITH STREET, LONDON, S.W.1 





236 


OKI eh Oe 
THE HANDMAID OF THE CHURCH 


1. The S.P.G. was founded by action taken in Convocation and Incorporated 
in 1701 by Royal Charter. 

2. It was, for nearly 100 years, the only Missionary Society connected with 
the Anglican Church. 

3. Its twofold aim is ministering to English settlers beyond the seas and 
propagating the Gospel amongst the non-Christian races of the world. 

4. Missionaries at work, 1,470. Many offers of service now being made. 

5. Its income in 1701 was £1,537 ; in 1926 upwards of £385,000. With this 
income, existing work is assured. An increase means response to the 
World Call. 

6. Money expended in 226 years exceeds £11,000,000. 

7. Every colony of the Empire has at some time or another received its aid. 


What are you going to do in the light of the above facts to make it possible 
for S.P.G. to meet tts ever-increasing responsibilities towards OUR OWN 
PEOPLE OVERSEAS and the NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD ? 


Upon your answer at this critical moment, the whole future may depend. 


S.P.G. OFFICE, 15 TUFTON STREET Stacy WADDY 
WESTMINSTER, LONDON, S.W. I Secretary 





OMAR RAMSDEN 


ARTIST GOLDSMITH 
S'DUNSTANS, SEYMOUR PLACE.SW10 
DESIGNS AND MAKES UNIQUE 
SILVER FOR THE eres 







$ on view and. acivice 


fl estos estimates Fly gn re address.e—~ 






237 


THE SOCIETY OF 
9S: PE VER & PAIRS 


Every member of the Anglo-Catholic Congress 
ought to make use of S.S.P.P. to the fullest 
possible extent. 

@, Do you realise that from now onwards every 
penny of profit which S.S.P.P. makes is given 
under trust for the work of Congress literary 
propaganda ? 

@, Every time therefore you buy from S.S.P.P. 
you not only obtain what you want, but you 
also contribute to Congress work. 


What can you buy from S.S.P.P, ? 


Here are a few answers— 


1. BOOKS — both S.S.P.P. publications (for 
which write for S.S.P.P. catalogue)—and books 
from all the leading publishers, on sale in S.S.P.P. 
Book-shop. 


2, CHURCH ORNAMENTS — crucifixes, 


statues, incense, vestments, etc. 


3. PRINTING and production of every kind— 
posters, Church notices, booklets, etc., in artistic 
form and at reasonable rates. 


WW 


Write tor a free catalogue of §.8.P.P. publications. 


SOCIETY OF SS. PETER & PAUL LTD. 
WESTMINSTER HOUSE 
GREAT SMITH STREET, LONDON, S.W. 1 


(Telephone : Victoria 8805.) 
238 





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